To Embrace The Sky
by Surreptitious Chi X
Summary: Part 4 in continuing AU series. Artemis tries to reorder his life, but the pieces fall into place slowly. Jarlaxle is his link to the real world as he grows introspective during their stay in the small village of Poln.
1. Chapter 1: The Chance of Freedom

Disclaimer: You have come to a place that allows people to submit fanfiction. You most likely already know this; that means that you also have a full understanding that characters you are familiar with from R.A. Salvatore's work, Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle, are his characters, and not mine. You are not being charged money for this, and I am writing about them in a purely speculative and unofficial way.

Author's Note: This comes after Trying Too Hard, A Test of Faith, and Interlude. They are no longer the canon characters because of character development. However, their personalities as portrayed have come about as a result of reasonably realistic guesswork on my part about how they could have evolved as people in the situations of my first three fanfiction stories.

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Artemis was contemplating death.

He'd stayed up all night writing on a piece of parchment in his cramped handwriting. He'd bullied the timid innkeeper into letting him borrow the paper and the inkpot and quill.

After dinner, he'd gone down to menace the man into lending the supplies to write his letter, and when he'd come back Jarlaxle was gone. He'd mysteriously left the room, taking his colorful cloak and his hat and pretty much everything else the elven mercenary owned, except for a pair of hoop earrings and a sandwich, which he'd left on the desk. Artemis had taken this as an invitation and eaten it around midnight, wondering how Jarlaxle had known that the assassin would get hungry.

The elf still wasn't back now. That was the way Artemis wanted it, so he didn't waste time second guessing whether or not Jarlaxle was doing something he disapproved of.

The assassin raised an eyebrow, still staring at the gleaming blade of the dagger.

After all, Jarlaxle's business hardly mattered now. What mattered was whether or not he could stop himself before he made quick work of himself.

Artemis took in the beautiful gleam of the polished metal in the golden light of the morning flooding through the window across the room and laughed at himself. The effort was almost painful. His ribs ached in a way that he hadn't felt before any other time other than being kicked.

When I became an assassin, I never thought I'd be working to kill _myself_. It was ridiculous. Asking himself to take out a target that was none other than himself for a sum of gold. How do you pay yourself when you are dead because that is what you have been paid to do?

Just for a lark, he tried to figure that out. The assassin wondered if he was stalling, but indulged his amusement for the time being. Perhaps if I wrote a will bequeathing my own reward for killing myself to Jarlaxle after I'm gone because of the result of the job.

Artemis scratched his chin, grimacing at the heavy stubble on his face.

He hadn't shaved for three days, and it showed. Jarlaxle had made a comment about his face brushing against Artemis' feeling exactly the same as trying to wash his face with a sheet of splintered plywood instead of a washcloth. Artemis had taken pity on him and slept with his back to the elven mercenary instead. For some unnamed reason, he didn't want to shave. He willfully chose not to. Something made him need this rebellion in regards to self-care.

Again, Jarlaxle hadn't commented, or even suggest in passing that the assassin shave. The elf was giving him his space. Which was profoundly unnatural. But what did it matter?

He scratched his chin again.

It could be a trick. Jarlaxle could be trying to use his own curiosity against him and try to get him to rethink his suicide plans. The elf had an uncanny ability to keep three steps ahead of him. What if Jarlaxle correctly interpreted him? Jarlaxle could be purposefully leading him on by being mysterious and stoic. Jarlaxle could be trying to manipulate him by giving him space.

Jarlaxle could be off picking blackberries for all I care. Just do it.

"I'm disappointed," a pleasant voice with an elven lilt said from the doorway behind him. The assassin glanced over and could see Jarlaxle poised in the doorway, one hand casually on the doorframe as he leaned against it, crossing his legs and looking for all the world as though he'd stepped out of some obscure land where pirates and noblemen were one and the same. The dark elven mercenary tilted his head. "I thought you'd at least have scratched yourself by now. After all, I left you alone for a full twenty-four hours. Where's your drive?"

Artemis gave a start and sent the dragger clattering to the floor from his limp hand. The words burst out of him without any intention of his to say them. "You're not wearing your eye patch."

Jarlaxle waved at him with a regal seeming nonchalance. "I thought you'd like that," he said. "I discovered that I'll be needing both eyes shortly, so it will be best not to have a magical item that impairs my ability to see."

His eyes, though red, a color the assassin would once have looked upon as unnatural, were really quite handsome. They were intelligent eyes, and even though they had no pupils, there was something calming about looking into them. There was a lost space of time where Artemis didn't realize he was staring, but he eventually said, "So that's what you've been up to." His voice rasped, so he cleared his throat, but he didn't know what else to say.

Jarlaxle advanced into the room, his boots rapping smartly on the wooden floor. "You can have this if you want," he said, tossing a thin, flexible object through the air. It was black.

Artemis caught it without thinking and found it was a string with a bit of cloth attached to it… He stared down at it in incomprehension. He fingered the object for a moment, and then his gaze snapped back to Jarlaxle. The assassin was frozen in surprise.

"You always displayed a fascination for it, my friend," Jarlaxle said, shaking his head and making a face at Artemis as though he couldn't understand what was so fantastic. "It became harder and harder to keep you from pulling it off my face anyway." The elf shrugged. "But on the other hand, I never expected you to tolerate something so bright in color, so I had it changed to black. You seem to be able to wear that color, at least, if black can really be called a color."

The bastard had neatly smoothed over his imminent suicide attempt. Artemis looked at him coldly. "What is the meaning of this?"

Jarlaxle frowned at him incredulously. "What do you mean, what is the meaning of this?" He closed the distance between them and took the eye patch from Artemis' hand, touching the assassin's arm and shoulder in reassurance before slipping up behind the man.

Jarlaxle carefully brought the eye patch down over Artemis' head and adjusted the fit so that it rested over Artemis' left eye. He walked Artemis over to the mirror above the dresser. "Well, how do you like it?" he asked.

The assassin was overwhelmed. It felt strange not having the use of both of his eyes. Seeing his face in the mirror with three days' worth of stubble, his hair tangled and free around his shoulders instead of being neatly brushed and tied back, and an eye patch over his left eye was like staring into the face of a total stranger. He felt no surge of recognition at all. "Who am I?" he murmured.

"You tell me," Jarlaxle said, smiling broadly, which Artemis could see reflected in the mirror. The elf nudged his shoulder playfully. "You could be anyone you wanted to be. You don't have to be Artemis Entreri the assassin." He gestured flamboyantly. "You could disappear without a trace, leaving stories in your wake for bards to tell to taverns full of drunk listeners and children for generations." He slapped Artemis' shoulder in a congratulatory way. "And you could reappear as whoever you want, therefore getting _twice_ the glory of the ordinary person! One great man, with two identities! What do you say?"

"I don't think I can pull it off," Artemis said. The expression on his face was impassive, but his visible gray eye reflected in the mirror was intimidated. It was too much to think about in such a small space of time. His head was spinning. "I don't know if I want to do this."

"Then what can you do?" Jarlaxle asked, wrapping his arms around Artemis' waist and gently pulling him into an embrace, looking at them both in the mirror. The action betrayed the calm with which he acted and revealed the true worry that beat through him like the ever-present pulse of his heart.

The assassin paused. The man in the mirror that he was supposed to be looked less and less like anyone he knew; if there had been a passing similarity between him and the image of himself in the mirror, it was beginning to slip from his grasp. There was a spurt of primal terror lighting his gray eyes. He could still pick up the knife. If Jarlaxle truly cared about him, he wouldn't stop Artemis from ending the painful illusion of reality around him.

"End it all because you can't go on any longer as Artemis Entreri?" Jarlaxle spoke directly into Artemis' ear.

Artemis wondered if he'd betrayed more than he'd thought, perhaps even so far as to have looked at the dagger still lying on the floor behind them. But then again, he didn't have to for Jarlaxle to know what he was about. The dark elven mercenary implied that he knew the whole time.

"Why can't you cut yourself loose from your identity without stabbing yourself in a place that you need most if you are to keep going?" the dark elf asked. "It is not a good enough reason to end your life just because _Artemis_ can't advance any further. An identity is just a name. After a while, you start building it up into something greater, a force to be reckoned with. But at the end of the day, it's still possible to sever it from you completely and start again if it doesn't turn out the way you'd like."

"How many names do you have?" Artemis asked. The assassin's voice was dead sounding. He only wanted to lie down and never be forced to remain on his feet again. This excuse for a life had gone on long enough. He was through living because people around him thought that he would provide amusement at his continued existence. He closed his eyes and felt his body begin to tremble.

"Five," Jarlaxle said. His embrace tightened slightly as he saw Artemis' expression change yet again to defeat. Jarlaxle thought that the assassin was trying to keep him talking along enough to escape. "It's not my real name, you know. If you can call it that. It's more accurate to say 'birth name', don't you think?" He paused. "Is Artemis your birth name?"

The assassin's head sagged forward, and then he nodded, seeming more tired and aged for the gesture.

My, my, the dark elven mercenary thought. I thought you'd at least have changed it when you ran away. Jarlaxle kissed the wearied assassin on the cheek. "I have a solemn vow never to say mine. That would cause too many waves. No one would ever let me rest if they knew I was still alive."

"That name…Jarlaxle…is something you made up?" Artemis said.

"You like it?" the dark elf grinned, impulsively squeezing him. "I think it fits me." He paused. "Much better than Uryd," he said. He pronounced it 'er-yid'. "That was my street name. I was young then, hardly a ten year old by your standards when I stopped using it in favor of something more musical to the ear."

"So…what does 'Jarlaxle' mean?" Artemis asked. He blinked, opening his eyes again. The normal color was returning to his face, and he felt less dizzy. It showed in his renewed steadiness on his feet, and his gray eyes darkened, some measure of reassurance in his visible eye when he looked in the mirror. "Or does it mean nothing, since you made it up?"

The elf hoped that meant what it seemed to and the assassin was feeling better. The man had worried him. Jarlaxle's grin broadened. "'Jarlaxle' means 'laughter coming from an alley where there is no one standing', or, if you wish to interpret it less literally, laughter that is mysterious in nature, possibly to disconcert whomever has the pleasure of hearing it."

"You can get away with calling yourself that?" Artemis said, turning his head to glance at his dark elven companion dubiously.

Jarlaxle rocked back on his heels and shrugged his shoulders with gleeful carelessness. "You can get away with calling yourself anything." He kissed Artemis on the lips. The man melted into his arms unthinkingly for a moment, warm and trusting.

Artemis pulled himself away again with difficulty. "But what do I call myself?"

"I suggest that you call yourself something natural from your home country," Jarlaxle said. "After all, one man from Calimshan looks very much like another, wouldn't you say? Especially since we are among northerners." He smiled slyly. "Might I suggest a name that has become very popular around Calimport?"

The assassin gave him a glare that said, 'you're about to say something absurd, aren't you?'

But for once, Jarlaxle was serious. The smile reached his cunning eyes, warming them. They almost seemed to glow. "'Rathad'. How does that strike you?"

"Who needs a name like Artemis anyway?" Artemis said. He adjusted his eye patch in the mirror, settling it squarely over his eye in satisfaction, making sure it was in the right place. "It's always gotten me into trouble. I'd like not having a name that sounds like a woman." He nodded at himself. "Rathad it is." He turned fully to face his hopeful companion and said, "Now see if you can find me a change of clothing. I'd hate to have to be reduced to stealing clothing from a dead man."

Jarlaxle eyed the weapons at Artemis' belt. "Shall I dispose of those for you while I'm at it?"

It made cold sense to Artemis that if he wanted to change identities, he couldn't carry around any of his weapons. They were as good as signing his signature to a document stating his name change for the public to read at their leisure. He felt only mild regret. That was a more positive response than he'd hoped from himself at the prospect of parting ways with his weapons and getting new ones. "What did you have in mind?" he asked.

Jarlaxle knelt in front of Artemis and unbuckled his companion's belt, his eyes fiery with curiosity about what he was going to do in order to dispose of the fascinating weapons at Artemis' disposal. "I wouldn't presume to choose two weapons for you and give them to you without your ever getting a chance to see what the selection is yourself. I've been busy gathering the likeliest candidates for you to deliberate in the training room at the Bregan D'aerthe arsenal." He stood, coming away with Artemis' belt, and folded it neatly in half.

"Didn't Kimmuriel mind that you used that space for something like this?" Artemis said, smiling in amusement.

"Well, he doesn't run the whole place by himself," Jarlaxle said, huffing indignantly.

The assassin resisted the urge to laugh at him. He took in a deep breath and exhaled. He felt lighter than he had in decades. He felt a sense of freedom, almost as if he could out right now and do anything he wanted, simply to do it. It was incredible. He closed his eyes and imagined that he was a bird. He almost felt as if he really had wings. At that realization, the man did laugh, shaking his head.


	2. Chapter 2: Artemis' Convoluted Narrative

Author's Note: I let Artemis determine the flow of the chapter this time. His thoughts go from one thing to the other, but I wrote about this in third person. It may be slightly confusing, but it came out this way, and I trust in Artemis' ability to eventually tie everything up neatly.

Artemis' Convoluted Narrative

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The next day, Artemis was out and about on Poln, the small town where he and Jarlaxle had ended up staying to avoid whatever mysterious ghost had tried to wring the elf's neck. He was constantly playing with his new weapon, swinging it through the air in lazy arcs and twirling it in coordinated rhythms. This minor show drew much curiosity from the inhabitants of the town, and he found that he didn't mind.

His new weapon was a sword named Shadir. It was a stylish broadsword made of steel, or something comparable, but lighter. The dull metal was strangely mottled, and though it was heavy, it had the best balance of any blade he'd ever wielded. It felt almost weightless in motion. It didn't flash in the sun.

Jarlaxle said that he'd almost thrown it away when he'd acquired it nearly a year ago, and had to be reassured by his best experts that it indeed had some enchantment or magical quality. He'd tried to figure it out, but had been frustratingly without any results to show for it.

He'd stowed it in a corner of the armory, where Artemis had found it yesterday. They'd gone straight to Bregan D'aerthe after Jarlaxle had found Artemis travel clothing in a style different from the assassin's old clothing. Something had drawn the assassin to the broadsword leaning against the wall, covered in old cobwebs hanging heavy with dust. It was a feeling, like a magnetic attraction. It hadn't felt harmful, so he'd indulged this feeling and walked across the room to it. The sword had almost seemed to recognize him.

Artemis felt an awareness there, but it was unlike any magical sentience he'd felt before. It felt almost the same as looking into a tame animal's eyes. He'd laughed, a small, low sound in his throat. This thing was friendly.

Before Jarlaxle could ask him what he was doing, he wrapped his hand around the cloth-bound grip of the sword's hilt and hefted it.

There was a benign tingling surge that traveled up his arm, almost as if it were saying hello. He liked it. The rusty understanding he had of his emotions took a while to discern that he was delighted at the sensation.

"What's its name?" he asked, looking at Jarlaxle and swinging the sword idly.

"It's sentient?" Jarlaxle had asked, watching him closely.

He nodded, and tilted his head with a grin. "Of course."

"Then why don't you ask it if it has a name?" the dark elf said, his expression still intent.

Artemis shrugged, and did so. He thought the question at it. He couldn't describe the way he knew he was directing his question at it. "Shadir," he said. It sounded like 'shah-dyr', with an emphasis on the second syllable.

Then he'd woven it through the air, swinging it back and forth in a complicated gesture, testing it. The smile on his face hadn't gone away. "It likes me."

He didn't know why he'd said that, but it was just so… It was almost intoxicating, being so connected to another mind. Shadir wasn't precisely a person, but it was a sort of thing. It was like his pet. It wanted to follow him around anywhere and cut things.

On impulse, he dragged the tip of it across the stone floor. There was a dull _sloosh_ as the tip of the sword dragged against the stone, and then there was light gray dust on either side of a long, shallow scratch.

Jarlaxle gave a start, his hand out as if to stop the assassin, and halted, too late. "You're ruining my floor!"

Artemis looked at him and began laughing. He couldn't help himself. He held the sword point-down a few inches from the floor and stood there innocently.

The dark elf came over and bent over the patch of ruined floor, touching the gouge with his fingertip. "Now what am I supposed to do about _this_?" Jarlaxle said, the feather in his hat pointing at an annoyed angle as he tilted his head. His expression turned into a scowl.

Artemis shrugged, and began to make up some sort of excuse, but then he didn't bother. "Why don't you just ask someone to repair it? Surely floors get scratched in Menzoberranzan," he said, trying to keep from laughing any further. "It's not my fault you collected a sword that can cut through anything."

Jarlaxle jerked away from him, instantly a safe distance out of the reach of Artemis' new sword, cape flying. "Did you just say that thing cuts through anything?" he said.

The assassin nodded, looking slightly confused about the source of his companion's alarm. "Yes, I did. It does. It cuts through anything, as controlled by whatever I want it to do."

"You can control it after only having handled it for less than five minutes?" Jarlaxle said. There was something like alarm in his eyes that Artemis didn't understand.

Artemis shrugged again. "It likes me." Jarlaxle looked at him incredulously. He blinked. "As I said." He twirled it through the air again. "I guess my other sword just had a temper." That was humorous for some reason, the thought of Charon's Claw hovering at his hip, constantly grumbling in its sheath. It made his face light up in uncharacteristic good humor for another time in a short space of time.

"Are you sure you're in control of yourself?" Jarlaxle asked.

"Is your eye patch still working?" Artemis said. He touched the black patch with his free hand.

Jarlaxle didn't look amused. "Yes, but that doesn't prevent certain other things from doing things they shouldn't be able to do." He gave the assassin a pointed stare, trying to remind him of evil magical crystals that turned themselves into monstrous towers.

"Do you always have to be vague, or is it a new trend you're starting?" Artemis said, blithely switching Shadir from hand to hand, testing his capability to wield it with either hand. It worked beautifully. He'd never dreamed of having such a perfect extension of himself to play with. The weapon did whatever he wanted it to.

The dark elf took on a patient demeanor, his eyes still grim. "Fine. Then show me what you can do."

"Is that a challenge for the practice arena?" Artemis asked, his visible eye eagerly lighting up.

Jarlaxle shook his head. "No. Just show me." I don't want him swinging that thing near me until I know it's safe. Who knows what an evil weapon might take it into its head to do? It might even be a weapon from the surface that was designed to kill people of my kind.

The assassin looked around, wondering what to do that would convince his friend. He saw another blade, one that Shadir told him was an ordinary cutlass, hanging on the wall amongst the many other blades stored in the arsenal. He strode over, took it down, and then handed the cutlass to Jarlaxle.

Jarlaxle took it and gave Artemis a look, waiting for an explanation.

Artemis started walking backwards, holding up a hand. "Stay back there. Just hold it." He wore a look of hopeful anticipation, as though he were about to show the elf something he was proud of, a hint of nervousness betrayed in his body language.

That inspired trust in Jarlaxle a little, which was the most he ever allowed a person's actions to inspire trust in him. So he waited without comment, holding the weapon out in front of him. If he makes one wrong move, my lover or no, he's going to die, the dark elven mercenary thought.

Artemis rushed him and sliced at the cutlass in a blindingly fast arc. Jarlaxle almost dropped the sword, but he didn't have time. The blade clattered to the floor right in front of him before he could even cry out. Jarlaxle stared at the stump of shorn metal protruding from the useless hilt he was holding in his hand. "You could have killed me," Jarlaxle said. His expression was blank. Artemis thought that this was because of annoyance that he was trying to handle in a civilized fashion.

Artemis smiled, trying to defuse his irritation. The assassin pointed to Shadir with his free hand, which he was holding straight up. "I didn't." There was still a faintly boyish hopefulness surrounding him. He glanced around the room briefly. "Is there a dagger that goes with this?"

Jarlaxle finally let out a convulsive shudder, cringed with his shoulders, and dropped the useless hilt on the floor. He recoiled from it, looking at it accusingly with one foot upraised as if it were the refuse of a rothe he had been about to step in before he looked down. "Thankfully, _no_. You and your theatrics. I should warn the world before you get back to it. Rathad is a prankster."

"You make it sound like an insult," he said, his visible eye wide.

"It is." Jarlaxle glared at him. "You ruined a perfectly good weapon."

The assassin made a dismissive gesture and turned his back on his companion, carelessly resting his new weapon on his shoulder. "You don't like it because you thought _you _had the only position as a prankster in this partnership." He meandered over to the other side of the room and leaned over a table on which more than a dozen different daggers had been laid out. "Are these ones available, or are they only for mercenaries who have been good?" He absently sheathed Shadir in order to have both hands free to examine the daggers.

Jarlaxle sighed. He was happy that Artemis had recovered from his suicidal impulses, yes, but now he was flippant. He wasn't sure how to interact with the man anymore after this. He was like an entirely different person.

It's disconcerting seeing him _happy_, the drow mercenary reminded himself. He hasn't really _changed_ a bit except for the fact that he's not treating himself like something that was vomited into a gutter.

It was horrible, but true. Jarlaxle usually liked and valued the truth over everything else, viewing it as something rare and valuable as a gemstone. Nevertheless, somehow it was painful to think of Artemis' self loathing in such vivid terms. It gave him the feeling of his chest being punched, right over his heart.

He walked up behind the newly changed man and teasingly ran a finger down Artemis' neck and shoulder. He grinned slyly. "What are you going to do to be good?"

The assassin paused. Then Artemis smiled. "If it's like that, then I can do that right after I pick out my new dagger. You don't happen to have something non-magical, do you?"

Jarlaxle wound his arms around Artemis' thin waist. "No, but I do have a few that only have minor enchantments that improve things like accuracy, sharpness, and how fast it can be wielded. There's one that does nothing but come back to you after you've thrown it at a target. Of course, it has to wait until it imbeds itself in something or falls to the ground, or –"

" –basically stops moving," Artemis finished for him. "I think I get it." He scratched his chin. "I saw a dagger like that once before, but it wasn't very impressive. Then again, the man who wielded it was a fool. Fools make anything look useless." He was putting it mildly, but it was hard to keep up any ire when he had two people who liked him around. There was Jarlaxle hugging him, and then there was Shadir happily resting in the sheath at his belt. The sword pulsed contentment. "You know, I think putting Shadir in that corner all by himself made him lonely," Artemis said.

"The way you talk about that sword is truly frightening," Jarlaxle said. "Please tell me that you will stop."

Artemis stroked the hilt of the sword and said, "Don't talk to it that way; it can hear you. You have no grasp of other people's feelings, do you?"

Jarlaxle tapped his chin with a finger. "Funny, I remember saying that to a certain other person I knew once."

The assassin playfully elbowed his companion in the ribs.

Jarlaxle jumped back and made a melodramatic gesture, flinging his cape out and letting it drop. "Oh, help! I'm being attacked! Oh, I trusted him!" He sank to his knees and then leaned backwards until the brim of his hat brushed the stone floor behind his head, hands over his chest as if he'd been stabbed. "Ah, oh, ah, ugh…"

The assassin whirled around as he felt a surge of magic from the other side of the room through Shadir's warning pulse.

Kimmuriel appeared, staring down at Jarlaxle with an expression of surprise, disgust, and being absolutely revolted. "What…are you doing?"

Jarlaxle grinned up at him, looking at him with his head so far back that the psionist looked as if he were upside down. He quickly got to his feet with a flamboyant flash of his color changing cape. He adjusted his hat jauntily. "Practicing for my part in a play. Would you like to see it?"

Kimmuriel stared at him. "…No."

"Ah, spoilsport. You won't know what you're missing."

"My pardon, but I don't believe I will ever have the pleasure of knowing what in the demonweb pits you are talking about," the dignified drow said.

"Pity," said Jarlaxle, and examined one ring-laden hand with a bored stare, glossing things over. He effectively ended the subject. "So what brings you to my corner of our little organization?"

"Seeing what you are about," Kimmuriel said, looking pointedly at Artemis.

"Finding out what your weapons do," Artemis said, giving the psionist a wide-eyed, vacant look.

Jarlaxle saw that things between the two of them might quickly deteriorate after that, so he stepped in. He tipped his hat to Kimmuriel politely. "Well, we're really very busy – we've got places to be, gold to acquire, information to hoard, people to kill, that sort of thing. Very complicated. – I'll be sure to fill you in if I think there's time later."

Kimmuriel made a gesture, his fingers twitching slightly in drow hand code. _Don't bother, _he signed. _I've got my hands full already. _The slight curl of his lip made it clear that his current business matters were the cause of his disgust.

_Ah. My condolences. _Jarlaxle couldn't help that the signaled phrase was insincere in the drow language. If he could, he'd be sincere. Their home language just didn't allow that sort of thing. _Don't get us all killed, right?_

_I'll try, _Kimmuriel signed sourly. He bowed respectfully and then disappeared.

"What was all that about?" Artemis said, looking at Jarlaxle with his hands on his hips, his stance nonchalant.

"The poor man's finding out what a curse it is to be the leader of an organization where everyone's held together with happy thoughts and wood glue," Jarlaxle said, beaming with a sympathetic air.

"Wood glue?" Artemis said. The assassin raised an eyebrow.

The dark elven mercenary turned to him with a mysterious expression on his face. "Wood glue," he said solemnly.

Then they'd gone back to their room. They did certain things of a private nature there that Artemis did not like to dwell on because strange feelings had lately begun to flutter in his chest whenever he and Jarlaxle were alone.

The Lucky Horseshoe was Poln's best, worst, and last inn. The other two burned down in marauder raids in the past two hundred years that periodically came from the nearest forest grove, called Bandit's Beat.

Artemis found this information out by being passingly friendly to the timid innkeeper he'd bullied only a short week ago. The man didn't even recognize him now when he was smiling.

"How are the wife and kids?" he asked, tossing the balding man a gold coin. "I hear this is a family business, isn't that right?"

The man nodded. He was nervous, but Artemis found that Erald Sunginnings was nervous by nature rather than anything Artemis managed to do to him. "My boy's doing okay," the innkeeper said. He added unhappily, looking distant for a moment, "He's having a tough time in the third grade, though. The other kids don't seem to like him."

"The third grade?" Artemis asked, blinking. He rocked back on his heels, confused by that reference.

"There are four grades in school until you move onto the next level," the balding man said. "Then there are four more at the next level. It's divided by age group." He paused, giving the assassin a curious look, as if he didn't know why Artemis didn't know this, but he wasn't going to ask. "There are three levels. One for little kids," He gestured with his hand his knee to indicate height, "then one for the youths who're still growing into things, and then the last one is for the oldest sons and daughters in the town. My son's still in the first level. He's the boy in the stable. You might have met him."

"Yes, I have," Artemis said, surprised. He tried to think of something to say to the portly man's obvious pride, a thing that baffled him and fairly scattered his wits. "He's a good boy."

"He's so good with the horses, too," Erald said, clasping his hands eagerly. "Says he wants to own all the horses he can get to anyone that'll listen to 'im," he said. "Yuil might even become a horse trader one day."

"Ah…" Artemis glanced at Jarlaxle, who leaned against a corner of the room with his arms crossed and the wide brim of his hat shadowing his eyes, but it didn't hide the dazzling white grin on his face. He was enjoying Artemis' attempts to make conversation with the innkeeper.

A woman in a blue checkered dress and apron walked into the room through the swinging saloon-style doors beside the clerk's desk. She was carrying two large, round trays, one in each hand. "Your evening meal's ready," she said.

"Thank you," Artemis said, turning to her, one arm still resting on the top of the innkeeper's clerical desk. That was what he'd just paid Erald for; actually, also for drinks and anything he might have for a dessert afterwards. He hadn't wanted a dessert for a long time, but he had a sudden craving for a sweet food today. He wanted to celebrate.

He was relieved for the excuse to sit down at one of the round wooden tables and get away from the balding man before he was pushed entirely beyond the boundary of his comfort. He dropped into the chair without even cushioning his fall. The worn black cloak that he wore now billowed up at the sudden puff of air and settled over the back of the wooden chair.

Artemis sighed and rested his elbows on the table.

"Long day?" Jarlaxle asked. His crimson eyes gazed at him sympathetically from across the table.

"Mmph," Artemis said. He was still getting used to the eye patch and the clothing Jarlaxle had found him.

The whole ensemble he was wearing was made of light, airy cotton, and it was purposefully oversized, obscuring his frame and giving the illusion that he was more heavily built than he was. He wore a white shirt with long, loose sleeves and thick cuffs that were fitted to his wrists. He appreciated the soft gloves of white leather that Jarlaxle had turned up for him to wear; having his hands exposed made him nervous for reasons he didn't ponder.

His boots were nearly knee-high with turned down cuffs. They were made of dull black leather and had large, chunky heels. He supposed the idea had been to make him look taller. They were comfortable, which was all he really cared about. In addition, no one would suspect him for an assassin, because it was impossible to walk silently in them; they would still faintly thump when he used stealth. He supposed he didn't mind, because Jarlaxle had silencing spells.

The drow had been enthusiastic to play dress-up-the-assassin with him. He'd had Artemis stand in the middle of the room while he took garments out of a bag and examined the fit, mixing and matching until Jarlaxle was satisfied. Artemis had merely rolled his eyes. The grinning elf had also gotten him to try on a black hat with a wide, turned up brim, but Artemis had said, "It makes me look too much like a swashbuckler." He'd allowed himself to chuckle at the image he presented in the mirror above the dresser and then had taken the overly stylish hat off.

The assassin reflected on those events of the early afternoon and sighed again. "I know," Artemis said, seeing the look on his companion's face. "'Why so glum', right?"

Jarlaxle shrugged and smiled invitingly, waiting for the assassin's response to his own question.

"Well, never mind," Artemis said, brushing off the thought with a dismissive wave of his gloved hand. He unrolled a napkin with his silverware in it and breathed in the rich smell of the roasted turkey on the table in front of him, smiling easily. "Let's eat."

"Mmn," the drow mercenary said, likewise unrolling his own napkin without really taking his eyes off of his companion. He felt his usual compulsion to push, but made himself wait. If he wants to put this conversation off until later, let him enjoy himself, Jarlaxle thought.

"What were you up to these past three days? I've seen less and less of you, and now you're back," Artemis said, trying to make light conversation over their meal. He carved up a few slices of turkey breast and deposited them on his plate. "Were you always preparing for me, or were you doing something else sometimes? Why did you think I would do it?"

"I specialize in desperate men," Jarlaxle said, smiling lightheartedly and shrugging, but the look in his eyes showed that he was the slightest bit worried. "Interesting people, the desperate." He gestured with a leg of turkey, holding it unabashedly in his bare hand.

"How so?" Artemis asked, glancing up at him and then at a plate of boiled eggs near to Jarlaxle, wondering if he would enact something with his food. Sometimes Jarlaxle displayed this ridiculous habit. It tempted Artemis to eat whatever it was Jarlaxle used as a prop just to disrupt the drow and see if his companion would recover enough to finish telling his stories.

"You see, my dear Rathad," Jarlaxle said, "people almost become different people when they're desperate. It's as if their true natures were waiting underneath the surface, just waiting to be revealed by a true crisis." His eyes gleamed. "How fascinating, to watch as this unveiling begins." He bit into the turkey leg, chewed, and swallowed. Then he beamed innocently. "Or so I have often fantasized."

The assassin gave him a look. "Fantasize nothing," Artemis said. "You actually go around doing it, don't you. Manipulating people to the wall, cornering them until they have to do something to escape just to see what they do."

Jarlaxle laughed. "My friend, whatever gave you that idea? My ideas are entirely within the realm of speculation. Why, to corner a person just like a rat and prod at them to see if they bite? That would be cruel." He blithely took more chunks out of the leg of turkey and acted as though the conversation had ended.

"I think you are cruel," Artemis announced, staring at the dark elf with a smile playing across his features. The look he directed at Jarlaxle was cynical, but affectionate at the same time.

Jarlaxle stared back, raising his eyebrow ever so slightly. There was ambition, charisma, and amusement all mingled with intelligence in the depths of his eyes. "Do you?"

There was a subtle impression of coming into conflict, perhaps at an impasse. But the brief power struggle ended as they withdrew, regretfully. Jarlaxle looked at his plate, Artemis ordered a beer.

No one bothered them during their meal, though a few townspeople kept giving Jarlaxle dissatisfied glances from across the room.

Artemis had taken care to explain to Erald that Jarlaxle was 'a friendly drow', and therefore was to be treated with respect. He made sure that the innkeeper understood before he went back up to his room. That had been nearly two days ago, and the effort had paid off as no one suddenly banged on the door and rudely demanded through the wooden barrier why the 'evil black-skinned fiend' was being offered a place to stay.

The moment Jarlaxle was sure that he and Artemis were alone in the dimly lit hallway of the upstairs of the pleasant inn as they walked side by side back to their room, the drow drew his companion close and kissed him on the mouth, savoring the assassin's lips. Artemis was too startled to do anything about it until he could speak again, and then he pointed to their door and said, "Why can't we do that in there?"

Jarlaxle yanked the door open a trifle roughly, pulled Artemis through it, and them shut it with a loud bang behind them. With both hands gripping the front of Artemis' shirt, the drow mercenary pushed Artemis against the door and kissed him again, this time with an open mouth. The passionate pressing of their bodies together as they kissed lasted for almost a full minute.

Artemis drew away, still loosely pinned against the door, breathing heavily. His eye patch was askew, revealing both eyes. He stared at Jarlaxle, confused. "What's the meaning of this?"

Jarlaxle closed the distance between them and nuzzled the assassin's neck, rubbing against him, one hand on his shoulder and the other loosely placed at his hip. The wide brim of the drow's purple hat almost poked Artemis in the eye.

"I don't know," the elven mercenary said. He paused, his mouth slightly ajar, frowning at nothing in the face of the horrible blankness of not knowing what he was doing.

The realization Jarlaxle had came in an unbalancing rush, and he kissed Artemis on the nose. He was possessive. That was why. He'd almost lost the assassin, and he didn't know what he would have done. "I guess I'm just glad you're alright," he said, breaking into a genuine, relieved smile.

"Your hat's attacking me," Artemis said, plucking the offending object from the top of Jarlaxle's head and tossing it across the room. It flopped down onto the floor pathetically. He avoided meeting Jarlaxle's eyes at all costs.

When Jarlaxle saw this, he felt slightly hurt. There was a flicker of pain and surprise in his eyes; however small, it frustrated him that he felt stung at all. Usually, he was untouchable. Unstingable. And now he'd let someone else actually go and hurt him. He was being ridiculous. The drow's eyes hardened.

"I see," he said gaily, turning and wiggling a scolding finger at the hat. "I shall have to see it gets sent to a better trainer. Or perhaps an anger management school for vicious hats." He beamed at Artemis engagingly. "Now, where were we?"

But the real expression on his face was thinly veiled. The drow mercenary probably didn't understand that he hadn't quite covered it up, but it said, 'Do you know what it cost me to say those words? You ungrateful bastard.'

Artemis was a master of reading half-hidden expressions. He reluctantly looked directly at Jarlaxle, looking uncomfortable and unhappy. "There was no need to worry," he said, ignoring his friend's other words. "I wouldn't have…" The assassin shifted; it was almost a cringe. "…left without saying goodbye."

Jarlaxle balled his hands into fists to keep from impulsively slapping the human man. No, he told himself. That would not do anyone any bit of good in this situation. He has been hurt enough by other people. Don't you start in on him. You may be a grumpy old graybeard, you don't have to take it out on him. He doesn't know any better. The last bit helped the most. He felt himself calming down. The man doesn't know any better.

"And how would you have performed this remarkable feat of speaking from the grave?" Jarlaxle asked, tilting his head and making a face of childish interest. "By enlisting the help of a cleric, perhaps?"

Artemis wordlessly reached into the pocket sewn into the lining of his shirt and drew out a folded paper concealed next to his skin there. His cramped, flourished handwriting was visible, almost too small to read. He handed it to the dark elf solemnly.

Jarlaxle took it, gingerly holding it between thumb and forefinger. "What is this?" he asked.

"A letter." Artemis stood and waited for Jarlaxle to unfold it.

Jarlaxle glanced from the folded paper in his hand, to Artemis, and back to the letter. He cleared his throat. "You expect me to read this?" He saw an almost imperceptible nod. "Right now?" Another nod. "Standing here?"

Artemis stood there like a stone. "Sit if you want."

He wasn't sure if he wanted to do it while Artemis was watching. He got the sinking feeling that he might not have a choice in the matter. The assassin wanted him to read it while the man watched, gauging his reactions. He didn't envy the task. Artemis might take insult to any reactions that passed over Jarlaxle's face. He didn't even know what the assassin wanted from him.

I'm not going to like this, am I, Jarlaxle thought.


	3. Chapter 3: Artemis' Feelings

Artemis' Feelings

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Jarlaxle sat on the edge of the bed and began to read. He had to concentrate on the words, so much so that he was soon lost in them, only dimly aware that Artemis was standing near the door with his arms crossed, watching the drow unfold the piece of paper and squint at it grimly.

'There is no way to tell you what I have to tell you, so I have to do it and be done with it.'****

The drow paused at this opening line. Jarlaxle could almost hear Artemis speak the words.

He tried to imagine what frame of mind Artemis must have been in when he began to write. Jarlaxle couldn't.

He didn't understand a need to die – not really. Those times when he felt almost bad enough to figure out a way to kill himself, his survival instinct always kicked in. It was almost a voice hissing at him in his most lost moments to not throw anything away, that he'd cheated and scraped and taken anything that he needed for survival, that he'd already made the decision to live when he didn't have to, so he couldn't turn back now.

And Artemis has almost done the same thing, the drow mercenary thought. He too has suffered great dangers and forces threatening to wipe him off the face of this plane at an early age, yet he lives. Jarlaxle scowled in frustration at the mystery; because if he and Artemis were so alike, why did he choose to live while Artemis chose to die and had to be convinced to find another way?

He narrowed his eyes at the piece of paper and looked for the answers.

Artemis had continued, 'The reason for what I have to tell you for ought to be obvious. There was no way to tell you how I feel, so I had to do it. There was no way to tell you, but now there is.'

This letter, Jarlaxle assumed Artemis had meant. Buy what he didn't know was why an inability to communicate, so common for the assassin, had finally led up to this attempted act of self-destruction. If he'd been planning on murdering himself, then why did he wait until now? Jarlaxle thought.

'Why I didn't tell you before should also be obvious.'

Artemis' words were so real, so exactly mirroring what the man would say aloud if he were having a discussion, that the dark elf found himself having a dialogue with the inanimate piece of paper. "Should it?" Jarlaxle murmured. His eyes still scanned the page.

'I know you don't want the dead speaking ill of you, but you pry. Your shit kept keeping me from saying what was on my mind. That's why this way is better. By the end of the letter, you'll agree with me.'

Jarlaxle flinched.

'First of all, there is everything I wish I hadn't done. I wish I hadn't taken my father's crap, I wish I hadn't taken my first sword and killed a man, and I wish I hadn't been cruel to everyone I meet. Most of them didn't deserve it. I know most of the women I've ever met didn't deserve it, and they didn't deserve me making them live in terror until I had gone. You'll hate me for this, I know it, but I loved you and I loved our old relationship – I loved being around you. And I' – here the word was scratched out with a series of lines and angry slashes – 'it up.' Jarlaxle supposed the assassin couldn't decide whether or not to use one word or the other. He knew of two the man could have chosen that fit Artemis' description of the situation.

"We didn't lose anything," the drow whispered to the page, becoming completely oblivious to the fact that Artemis was still in the room. Jarlaxle had the relaxing hum of his protection spells around the room, resonating off the delicate wands the enchantments originated from, safely tucked through loops along his belt. It was second nature to school himself to relax in response to his measures to secure the room.

'I want to say how much I love you. I, Artemis Entreri, fucking love you. I love fucking you. I love being around you. Every goddamn miserable habit, every miserable, unavoidable, repulsive, or painful, or humiliating thing you ever subjected me to I loved and it was **you**. Don't make me live without you. But don't make me live with you. Don't stop me. Don't make me live with you and everything I've done. If you make me live, I will fucking kill you. I will raise you, consider it money well spent, and kill you again.'

The drow slid a wary glance over to his companion, who he realized with an unpleasant lurch in the pit of his stomach was actually inside the room and very much alive. And so far, Jarlaxle noted, not trying to kill me for saving his life. Well, it's a start.

'You don't know how I feel about you. I had four broken limbs, a rag stuffed in my mouth, and the brains beat out of me with a long, hot object up my ass, and I wasn't old enough to escape. That feeling is the same feeling I have when I am with you. But when I'm with you, I can't escape because for once, there is no place to go that I want to be instead of with you. I'm stuck because you're attractive. Because even though I know it's a lie, I see your smile and I think you're smiling just for me. Because no one, no one in all forty-three years I've been cursed to survive, no one ever treated me better than you treat me when I'm around. And you're a fucking drow. How pathetically shitty is that?'

Jarlaxle didn't think he could read anymore. His mind was too full. His head spun. He had to sit there in silence on the edge of the bed and stare off meaninglessly without really looking at anything to order his thoughts for a while. The first thing he said when he found out that his eyes were actually focusing on the rays of sunlight refracted in the glass of the window was, "…You love me?"

"Read," Artemis said, turning his back on the drow mercenary. His voice was harsh. It stunned Jarlaxle to realize that the reason was because the man was struggling with intense emotion. "It's not done. Read."

Jarlaxle almost said, 'I can't,' but he bit it off and prevented himself from making that mistake. He knew it was one before he even spoke it. He didn't know how Artemis had managed to be calm the entire day. Even happy. Even courteous. He knew that the assassin must be on a precarious balance, ready to tip one way or the other – he couldn't have completely re-stabilized in such a short amount of time.

This morning he was going to kill himself, this afternoon he was happy, and now this evening he's pensive and worried, the drow thought. He might explode in a frenzy on me.

The dark elven mercenary bowed his head, closing his eyes. Jarlaxle curled his fingers around the bridge of his nose and rested his thumb on his temple in a tired gesture. He loves me? "Artemis. We need to talk."

"Read."

There was one pained moment that lasted an eternity until Jarlaxle was able to pull himself away and begin reading again. It took him almost thirty seconds to decipher Artemis' handwriting again.

'I want to thank you for everything you've done for me. You didn't have to; you just did, whether I wanted you to or not. And that meant something to me. Past tense, since I won't be with the land of the living for very long. You helped me kill Drizzt. Thank you. You don't know what you did for me. Every time he won, he gave me the feeling that he'd just kicked me in the ribs and bruised my soul. I had to make him stop. I had to win. I had to kill him. I had to. He…makes his words sting and his eyes cut me up into ten different pieces of leave me to die. What did I do? I was doing my **job**. My job. He was doing… What was he doing? Being a vigilante? Getting revenge? He should have been taking his quarrel up with my employers – it's them he objects to. Them he hates. Wants to disembowel. I merely did something for them to survive. He's not surviving. He's trying to kill me because he feels like it. Tried. I keep telling myself. Tried. He's dead. He can't leave me alone, even when he's dead. He keeps coming back. Those dreams… I told you about those disturbing dreams. His purple eyes. I never want to see purple again.'

Jarlaxle raised an eyebrow. "My hat's purple," he said.

"I hate your hat, too." Artemis' voice was brusque. He sounded as though it hurt his throat a little.

"I wonder, is that really the reason why?" The drow gave the hat lying on the floor a curious glance.

"Get a different hat."

Jarlaxle tried to fit in this new insight in his mind and felt slightly dizzy with all the information he was soaking up. He felt like a leech that was bloated from too much blood at once. He turned back to the letter and began reading when the room had steadied.

'And I want to thank you for being my friend. I don't deserve it. I didn't deserve anything. But you still did it. Is it any wonder that I'm in love with you? You didn't do this on purpose, I know it, but I am, and that's what's fucked us up, it was me, you didn't have anything to do with it this time.

You always healed me when I became injured. Always. It wasn't a pause, or the look in your eyes before you held out the orb, it was that you did it promptly after I was in pain. You don't want to hear this. That's partly why I'm writing it. So you don't have to hear it. Knowing you, you might have guessed it among hundreds of guesses continually being generated by your obsessive pondering. Thank you for not being like my father thank you for healing me instead of watching me quiver. Thank you for never cheating me, never beating me, never raping me, never trying to make me feel worse than I did already. I'm doing that myself without any help.

Artemis

That was it. Jarlaxle turned the page over uncomprehendingly, but the back side was blank save for places where the ink had soaked through. The dark elf couldn't believe it. That's all he left me with. He left me with a piece of paper jumbled up with his disturbed feelings. He would have left me with a piece of paper and his dead body.

Jarlaxle turned around, looked at the assassin standing there, dressed in a stranger's clothing and looking oddly scruffy, with his eye patch over one eye. He leapt to his feet, boots silent, crossed the room in three or four steps, cape flying behind him, everything in slow motion inside his head. He opened his arms and flung himself at the assassin, tightening his arms around the man's body as if he were never going to let go. He buried his head in the space between Artemis' neck and shoulder. "Why did you give me that letter?"

Artemis said, "I realized that the only reason I felt better was because I'd told you. Then that I hadn't because the letter was still in my pocket." He awkwardly wrapped his arms around Jarlaxle, uncomfortably aware that they were sharing intimacies usually locked away. "I couldn't tell you, and I still can't, so you had to read it. I can't…talk."

"Why don't you burn it? It's incriminating," Jarlaxle said. "It makes you vulnerable." He held it up between them, trying to give it back.

Artemis put his hand on top of Jarlaxle's and forced the drow to lower his hand. "Keep it. It's yours, anyway. Would have been. If I hadn't. Decided to live."

"Will you allow me to ask questions about this, or am I supposed to lock it away in a drawer somewhere and let it moulder?" Jarlaxle asked, looking straight into Artemis' eyes, sliding the eye patch away from the man's left eye.

Artemis looked down, not meeting his eyes. His expression was uncertain. "What would you ask of me?"


	4. Chapter 4: The Night

The Night

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Jarlaxle folded up Artemis' letter and stuck it in a pocket of his belt before smiling up at the assassin. He slid his arms around the man's neck affectionately.

Artemis was nearly three inches taller than him in those boots he'd procured. He'd gone to the local cobbler and asked around. They were growing popular lately because they were the same style as a nobleman, Duke Thesby, whom he heard tell was a very short man with a tall order of responsibilities. It had interested him, thinking of the ways that humans attempted to even the playing field, whereas in his city the drow tried to widen the gap of advantage to disadvantage.

When he realized that his thoughts were drifting, he thought, I must be tired.

"What?" Artemis said. "What is it that you are thinking of?"

Jarlaxle shrugged. "Our little situation. You. Me. Here. Now." He kissed Artemis lightly on the mouth. Then he patted the assassin on the chest. "We ought to go to bed." He turned and walked over to the four poster bed, paused, looked outside.

It was a warm night; the last of the blazing color was draining from the sky outside the window, leaving shades of blue and purple in its wake. The moon was becoming more plainly visible.

He crossed the remainder of the room to the window and closed the curtains. As he did so, he checked the clever little traps that Artemis had placed there. Surprisingly, they looked as though they hadn't been checked in days. There was a thin film of dust over them. That also proved that no one had entered their room without their permission, but still. Still, that was bold negligence for a trained assassin.

"Artemis…"

The assassin walked up behind him, his footsteps barely perceptible against the wooden floor. "Yes?" He said no more, because he saw what Jarlaxle was examining. He had the sudden urge to run away. A frightening jumble of confusion, fear, defensiveness, and shame crashed down on him. Before he could get a hold of himself, he had already taken two steps back, retreating from the back of his companion.

The dark elven mercenary turned, looked at him sharply with concerned eyes, and then invaded his space, wrapping strong arms around the assassin.

He took another two steps back, almost falling over as Jarlaxle moved with him.

"Stop," Jarlaxle said. His eyes narrowed at the assassin's face, eyes gleaming sharply, his expression confused. "What are you doing?"

Artemis only saw the beginning of a tirade, a violent list of accusations that could only end one way. He felt sick. He shut his eyes for a moment, only wanting Jarlaxle to leave him alone, let go of him, back off, let him breathe. He opened them, taking in a shuddering breath, and said, "I…failed my responsibilities."

Jarlaxle saw the man's reaction and understood. "I'm not going to hurt you for failing to check a few traps," he said. "That would be ridiculous." He tightened his grip on Artemis' waist. "I'm here to _help_ you, not _hurt_ you." He held up a hand, wiggling four fingers at the assassin. "Four letters, but otherwise completely different words. Try to keep them straight." He smiled.

The man hung his head, avoiding Jarlaxle's eyes. "I'm sorry I overreacted."

Jarlaxle kissed him on the cheek. "Don't be ashamed of that. I'm not here to punish you." He stroked Artemis' waist with one hand, trying to calm the assassin down. "It's alright. It keeps me on my toes. Now let's go to bed."

"I failed my responsibilities," Artemis said. There was no hint of recognition in his eyes at all at what Jarlaxle had said. "I…I can't go on as a useful associate to you if I can't even – perform –"

Jarlaxle silenced him by kissing him on the lips. "I don't demand perfection of those I associate with. It's time you dropped that unhealthy fixation. It could only take you so far before the world you live in fell apart anyway. What it means to be a new person is to not have to fulfill the strange, convoluted objectives of the person you were before. You're Rathad now, remember? If you like, I'll cease talking to you as 'Artemis' and call you Rathad." He ran his hand down Artemis' chest. "Would you like that?"

The man nodded without looking him in the eyes.

Jarlaxle smiled at him. "Then I'll call you Rathad."

The assassin managed a reasonably impassive expression and raised one eyebrow. "Isn't that my name?" he said.

The drow mercenary nodded approvingly. He kissed the man on the lips again. "Well, then, Rathad, let's go to bed."

"You've said that four times," Rathad said. "I've been counting."

"I'd rather not contest that," Jarlaxle said, going around his companion and leaning on one of the bedposts, pulling off his boots one at a time and tossing them to the floor. "The sooner we're naked, the better."

Rathad gave him a look. "We just did that this afternoon."

The drow gave him a winning smile. "But don't you want to do it again?"

The assassin put his fists on his hips and stood there. "I don't know. Convince me."

"You're a dashing man," Jarlaxle said, unbuttoning his vest and wiggling out of it. He tossed it carelessly over to where his hat was resting on the floor. His smile was dazzling against the pure black of his skin. "Surely you have…needs?"

Rathad pointed at him. "Not like the needs that _you_ have." It was a game, and that showed clearly in his gray eyes. He was enjoying himself.

"No?" Jarlaxle said, his eyes lighting up with interest. He sauntered over to the assassin and circled him, making a friendly inspection. "Then maybe you have special needs."

"Like space," Rathad said.

"Like closeness," Jarlaxle said, brightly wrapping his arms around the man and nuzzling his companion's neck. The statement was a deliberate contrast.

"Or rest," Rathad said.

"I like rest, too," Jarlaxle said. "Let's 'rest' together." He kissed a line from the assassin's neck to his jaw.

"Your lustfulness is getting the best of you," the assassin said.

"What about you?"

Rathad smiled smugly. "I have none."

"This wonderful bantering aside…" Jarlaxle said, unwrapping his companion's cape and letting it fall to the ground. He quickly worked on separating his dear Rathad from the man's vest, shirt, and gloves, all of which went into a pile on the floor. The assassin stood there and let him, looking amused.

"What next?" Rathad asked.

Jarlaxle beamed. "Now off with your sword," he said, and reached for it.

The man stepped out of the way. He clutched at the hilt of his weapon defensively and then began stroking its leather sheath. "The sword has a name," Rathad said, "and it's been lonely enough for a few decades. I'm not leaving it on the floor. Shadir's going to stay in bed with me."

The drow's mouth was ajar. "You can't be serious."

"Shadir wants to know why you don't like it." Rathad pinned him with a stare.

Jarlaxle held out his hands helplessly. "It's a _sword_." He made a pitiful face. "How do you expect me to sleep in the same bed as that infernal weapon?"

"It's not infernal," Rathad said. "It's never even been to a Hell." He didn't stop stroking the sword's sheath. "In fact, it was forged here on the surface."

"I know that," Jarlaxle said, looking annoyed. He bristled. "That thing is simply unsafe."

"Shadir never cuts anything its master doesn't want it to," Rathad said. "It's the safest sword in the world. Now apologize, or I'm not going to get into bed with you."

The drow felt himself beginning to wilt. "You're…not serious," he said weakly, but he let out a sigh of defeat, already knowing that his friend was, in fact, serious.

"Shadir is a very nice sword," Rathad said, glaring at Jarlaxle uncompromisingly. "Say it."

The drow mercenary eyed the broadsword at Artemis' side with barely concealed revulsion. "Mumble, mumble, very nice sword," Jarlaxle said. He pouted.

The assassin rolled his eyes. The drow hadn't even bothered to mumble, he'd just said the word 'mumble'. In spite of himself, Artemis was beginning to chuckle at that. Artemis? he thought suddenly. No, Rathad. He frowned. This is more confusing than I thought. How does Jarlaxle manage to pull this off? He ran a hand through his tangled hair and decided that perhaps he should ask. "How do you manage to keep all of your identities straight?"

"The problem," Jarlaxle said, lightly poking him in a nose, "is that you, unlike me, are not inherently dishonest." The drow kissed him on the lips. "It takes a rare man to believe that everything everyone says is a lie, and so it doesn't matter what you say one way or another."

"But it does matter one way or another," Rathad said.

Jarlaxle almost poked him in the nose again with his gesturing hand. "Ah, but that is why you are confused, and I am not."

"You're very confused," the assassin said. "I think you're the most confused person I know."

Jarlaxle shrugged.

The assassin reached out and embraced him, pulling him close on an impulse. Contentment ran through his blood like the alcohol he'd had at dinner, a couple of glasses of wine that quickly wore off, it seemed, since he felt no trace of them in his blood now. The beer he'd ordered before that had been with him longer. It had mingled with the wine into a third, new sensation. He felt warm. That was just him, or he could be feeling the warmth of Jarlaxle's body, which was so thin and lithe and muscular, so perfectly familiar in his arms. He was distantly aware of Jarlaxle grinning at him.

"It's true, you know," Artemis said. He was free again, the same feeling as that morning, when he'd thrown off the restraints of his earlier fears and suspicions and allowed himself to be. "I'm in love with you."

The drow mercenary looked at him affectionately. "Ah, but you don't know what you're talking about," he said, tracing little circles on Artemis' bare collarbone teasingly.

"But I do," Artemis said, and he wondered whether or not the alcohol was really making him a little unbalanced. "I do." It was harder and harder to think before he spoke. "There's no one else I love but you. I want to be with you always." He nestled even closer to that ebony-skinned body, taking in the familiar scent of his companion. It was warm, and salty, almost like chicken broth, and it was mingled with a sharper scent that reminded Artemis of fresh celery. "For forever." He rested his chin on the drow's shoulder. "Please..." He felt alone, a feeling like a cold draft on his back. He also felt safe, longingly trying to reach some promise of security. He couldn't look at his friend's expression.

Jarlaxle's voice was soft. "Alright, now, that's enough. The both of us have had a big day. There's no need to end it all in high drama. You know I'm not going anyplace. I gave you my promise, remember?"

As the drow guided him towards the bed, he stumbled. "I've had too much to drink," Artemis mumbled. "Shouldn't have…done this to myself, I'm a –"

"Very tired man," Jarlaxle finished for him, diverting his thoughts from unpleasant things to less volatile topics. The drow helped pull Artemis' boots off and turned the covers down for him.

"Wanna tell you a-bout my father," Artemis said, collapsing on the bed in an awkward heap.

Jarlaxle climbed in after him and helped straighten him out, pulling the covers up around them. It may be a warm night, but being covered gave them an extra sense of comfort they couldn't deny themselves.

The man's arms and legs became hopelessly intertwined with his own the more he tried to lay the assassin out in a comfortable position. He suspected this was his companion's doing.

The hilt of the sword at his companion's side was pressing into his hip uncomfortably, but he decided to let it be. Jarlaxle thought, who knows what might happen if I touched the thing. Nothing good.

The drow mercenary began, "It is a sensitive subject for you and you need–"

"I wanna tell you about my father," Artemis repeated, giving Jarlaxle a stare.

"Alright," Jarlaxle said, "alright, tell me about your father. I don't mind."

Artemis shifted, leaving the drow exhaling in relief as the hilt of the sword no longer jabbed into him. The assassin rested his head on the drow's chest, listening to Jarlaxle's heart beating. His face felt flushed. Perhaps he was really drunk. Was that what this was like? "I escaped from a bad place," the assassin said, reaching up and placing his hand on the other side of Jarlaxle's chest. "You'd be proud of me." Part of his mind already felt as though it were asleep.

Jarlaxle kissed the top of his head. "Very proud of you." The drow positioned his arms to greater advantage and rested his hands on the assassin's hips. They were still clothed from the waist down…for now. "Now, what was this bad place like?"

"Bad," Artemis said, reaching for the first word that came to mind. His expression was black, and he looked up, as if seeing again the imposing place of which he spoke. He shifted restlessly, the beginnings of a bitter scowl tugging at his mouth. "He was nice to me when other people were around. They didn't know…What he did to me. He had his hand on me. Inside, he told me I couldn't tell them what he was really…Bastard," he said, jerking away from Jarlaxle suddenly, averting his eyes. "He wouldn't tell me what he was doing. He said I didn't need to know. He said he was cleansing me. He said I was evil." The assassin began to tremble.

Jarlaxle saw that he was becoming angered. The drow mercenary didn't know what to do. The assassin still wasn't being coherent, but he didn't think it was the time to point that out yet. He should let Artemis try to get it out of his system. After so long, he knew it might take a long time. Perhaps we'll be like this for years, Jarlaxle thought. Still just as confused and desperate for each other as we are now.

"Tyr," Artemis said, breathing hard in and out, his breath catching in throes of an urge to cry. He closed his eyes. "_Tyr_ let him do this to me, let him say that I was evil, that I was rotten – _Tyr_ said my soul was meant for wicked deeds." His voice was growling in his throat. His skin felt hot, like a glowing coal. He was retreating into his own world of hatred and self-loathing. "What can I _do_?"

For his entire life, he wanted to know the answer to the question he'd been faced with ever since he was three years old, ever since he was old enough to think the question, it had plagued him, eating away at him. It was something he'd never told anyone, never wanted to tell anyone, for fear that they'd take it away from him, saying it wasn't proper for him to ask it.

He wanted to roar Jarlaxle's name in frustration. "I believe in Tyr. What can I do?" He didn't know whether or not Jarlaxle would even understand what he was talking about.

Then, he remembered the most recent humiliation he'd suffered. Just when he thought his reputation made him safe. He gripped Jarlaxle's bare shoulder too hard, making the drow yelp and then look at him reproachfully. "I had to kill him! I had to stop him, even if I had to rip out his throat," Artemis said. His teeth were bared in hostility, but his gray eyes were clouded with pain. "Make him stop saying those things – tell him that he's wrong!"

Tyr? Or his father? Or someone else I don't even know about? Jarlaxle thought.

He prepared to say something, but Artemis spoke first. "Why couldn't he let me

_alone_?" he moaned in despair, his hand slipping from Jarlaxle's shoulder, shutting his eyes and resting his head against the drow's chest again. "Why? He had no _business_." He almost seemed as though he were going to break down, but he didn't. All that came out was a solitary sob and he looked Jarlaxle in the eyes. "But you did. You did tell him to be quiet. You helped me defeat him. He can't say it ever again."

"Drizzt," Jarlaxle said.

Twin tears burst from Artemis with another sob and trickled in lonely hesitation down his face, disappearing into the rough black stubble. "Yes, Drizzt," he said. "The worthiest swordsman in Faerun." For a few moments, all he could do was sob. "The man who saw through the son of one of the greatest disciples of Tyr in Faerun and saw aimless, black-hearted trash, like having the half-eaten carcass of a dog hanging inside my body."

There was only silence in the room, and Jarlaxle. Artemis was suddenly aware that the wetness on his face was there because he was weeping. He couldn't stop himself. It was just like that night almost a week ago when he'd tried to hard to please Jarlaxle and had only ended up revealing himself for what he really was. A coward. A victim. An abuser. "I _survived_," he said. "Why am I evil?" Tears ran actively down his face as he looked at Jarlaxle.

"You've been hurt," Jarlaxle said. He pursed his lips. "But I've seen evil. Every kind of evil has its own unique form. You are not evil, my friend. I don't know what you have been told, but even if it was a god himself who told you so, it is not right of them to say such things of you." His crimson eyes were intense. "It was not right."

And I will make it right, he thought. If that Do'Urden boy has said such things about Artemis, perhaps I was foolish to let him live, Zaknafein's son or not. He should know better than to say such vicious things before he knows anyone. Zaknafein should at least have taught him that. It is easy to judge, but not so easy to withhold judgement until you know it's fairly dealt. I need to have a talk with that elf.

It registered with him only then that Artemis had confirmed one his worst fears – that his companion's father had been both Artemis' abuser and an influential cleric. Of Tyr, no less, who if he remembered correctly was supposed to be a god of justice to the humans on the surface.

Jarlaxle kissed his friend on the cheek. Forty would be young yet for a drow, but for Artemis, it meant that his time was half up. At the best, he'd have to say good-bye to Artemis soon, far sooner than he would have liked.

But…yes. Perhaps if I could find a magical artifact that could extend his life… His hopes rapidly rose and then crashed. There was no chance that Artemis would want to live any longer than his race would naturally allow him to do so. He's tried to end his life already, and I would have to stand in the way every day for the rest of his life if I tried to get him to stay longer for my sake.

Another blow to his heart was dealt when he realized that even if they died together, they would go to different planes, and he would never see Artemis again. He'd be taken to the pits where Lloth resided. And at this rate, Artemis is going to the endless plain where non-followers have to wander forever. He'd heard of something like that. The thought of Artemis there, lost in a crowd of rejected souls, was almost more than he could stand.

Why can't we all live forever? Jarlaxle thought.

"He made me pray to Tyr," Artemis said. "And then he raped me. He did it almost every night. Even when I tried…" He felt disoriented, as if he were just a child again and he didn't know where he was. He hurt. At the same time, he was an adult and he knew what he was doing, where he was, who he was with. It was strange.

Shadir was buzzing with some kind of energy at his side, the entire length of the sheath against his leg vibrating. _I want to cut him_.

You can't, Entreri thought to it silently.

Shadir subsided, mournfully.

Jarlaxle could understand that behavior of Lloth, but it was different with goodly gods. They weren't supposed to do that sort of thing. They weren't supposed to be capable of the same kind of atrocity… Jarlaxle didn't know any of the surface deities that well, and still he found himself becoming shocked at the obvious contradiction between Artemis' story and the general knowledge that was spread throughout the realm.

He liked this less and less. It looked ever more as though he would have to defend his honor and that of Artemis' by confronting Drizzt and giving the ignorant ranger a few more battle scars. At the very least. It was true that the drow child hadn't any idea what he'd done, but that made his actions more unforgivable, not less. If he'd truly wanted to do good, then he would have taken the trouble to help Artemis, not condemn the assassin for being forced into the line of work as a child after escaping from an abusive father. True virtue was about helping the downtrodden, the trapped, the ones that lost hope and became withdrawn shells of themselves. Not helping kittens down from trees. Jarlaxle knew he hadn't been on the surface long enough for anyone to trust him, but an outsider had some of the best insights into a culture that could possibly be attained, and he knew that there was an injustice to be righted. Because it was Artemis', he cared enough to do it, no matter what the costs. His own angered surprised him a little, but only made him more resolved to track Drizzt down.

"He's not going to get away with hurting you," Jarlaxle said, tightening his hands on the assassin's hips and kissing Artemis on the cheek. "If no good deed goes unpunished, as they say here, then it stands to reason that bad deeds are punished as well."

Artemis practically curled up into a ball. "If it's bad deeds that deserve punishing, I'll meet a far worse fate than my father ever did." His voice was a scratchy whisper. "I'll have to be lucky to die." He clung to Jarlaxle in a way that the drow had never felt him touch before. "All that my father ever did was rape me. One person. I've killed…over a hundred different people. One versus one hundred." He was weeping again. "I should never have become an assassin."

Jarlaxle was struck speechless again. All he could do was hang onto the man and hope that his suicidal talk would pass. The drow mercenary swallowed, then said, "You're drunk."

Artemis laughed through his tears. "Of course. I'm never satisfied with my old offenses. I have to create new ones. Once an assassin, now a liquor-fiend." He choked, trying to stop, but it didn't work. He was helpless against himself. "I'll be a hopeless sot for the rest of my days." The assassin let out a moan. "Tyr…Why did Tyr desert me? If it had been different, I never would have run away. Why didn't he answer me? I…" He shut his eyes tightly against another sob. "I prayed to him. I asked him to hurt my father, to punish him the way he claims in his scriptures to punish evil without mercy, asked him to get Father to stop hurting me."

Jarlaxle tried to imagine the small, bruised child that Artemis had been, hiding away somewhere to pray to a god he was sure would listen to him, begging in secret to be spared his daily pain. He ran an ebony hand through Artemis' hair.

"Do you know what happened?" Artemis' voice was emotionless. Flat.

Jarlaxle paused.

"Do you know what happened?"

The drow said, "No. What happened?"

"My father dragged me into his private study by my hair and made me lie on the floor in front of the desk where his Book of Tyr always rested. He broke my arms and legs and then forced himself inside of me." The man's body shuddered once. Then Artemis lay still, and it struck Jarlaxle that his stillness was a gruesome imitation of that stillness when he lay on the floor in his father's study. "I was helpless. I couldn't move without hurting myself so badly that I blacked out."

"What happened?" Jarlaxle said. He was gaping, but he didn't care that he was allowing that unattractive reaction to get the best of him. He found himself breathing a little faster. Amazingly, the images his imagination was conjuring up were scaring him. He tried to remind himself that Artemis was alright, and whole, lying on top of him, but somehow, that made it more unbearable.

It came to him that he was reacting so strongly because of the thought of Artemis lying on the floor, helpless, for possibly months until his limbs healed was giving himself flashbacks about the Mistress Yanari and the way she'd locked him away, trying to break him.

Artemis trembled, then uncurled and pushed himself up with his hands on the bed on either side of Jarlaxle. "I need to throw up."

The drow was motionless in surprise for a moment, then grasped the situation all too clearly and ducked under Artemis' arm, rolling out from under him. He grabbed Artemis and guided him to the door, then opened it and led the assassin to the wash room around the corner.

Artemis fell to his knees and vomited into the bathtub. He limply leaned over the rim, one arm draped over the edge, his head bowed, hiding his face.

Jarlaxle quietly closed the door behind them and watched, waiting for Artemis to finish, or ask for assistance.

"This is vile," Artemis said, his words echoing against the ceramic tub.

He puked again.

"Now I need a bath." He stirred, jerkily, as if he were in pain. "I hate my life."

"What about me?" Jarlaxle asked.

"You're the _only_ good part," Artemis said. He made no move to actually get back on his feet. Jarlaxle thought that he was having trouble merely kneeling instead of collapsing altogether.

"You're shaking," Jarlaxle said, coming forward in concern and kneeling behind him. It wasn't unusual for a person to shake after they'd just thrown up, but it was the _way_ Artemis did it that didn't look natural. He touched Artemis' arm.

"Aren't you?" Artemis' voice was brusque, but Jarlaxle still didn't have the right angle to view his companion's face. "I just told you one of the most horrible events of my life. You were shaking like a _leaf_ in there." He sounded as though he had regained some of his composure. "I think I'm flattered. I thought the drow were unmovable. Haven't you heard of anything like that ever happening?"

"Some things," Jarlaxle said. "Never like that." He slipped his arms around Artemis' waist, pressing his cheek against the man's shoulder. "Humans, I have noted, instead of developing a delicate method of torture, brutalize their victims with simplistic monstrosity." He paused, and then added, "In a way it's _worse_. Drow show a kind of sophisticated cunning – it's no better than a demented _beast_. No better than a maddened, mindless beast, what happened to you." He sucked in a deep breath and realized that he was close to crying. The drow mercenary tried to hide that fact from Artemis by staying silent, breathing in and out, trying not to let a shudder pass through the slight sounds.

He could feel the strain and give of a little boy's bones breaking in his hands, conjured up by his imagination, too ignited now to be banished. He was frozen, confused and fixated on the horrific, pointless image of his lover, no more than a little boy, lying on his back with four broken limbs, silent and unmoving.

Stop. Now. The voice that came from his mind startled him, though it was his voice speaking to himself. Jarlaxle's head cleared, and now all there was to see was his Artemis with his shirt off, still leaning over the bathtub, a sheen of sweat collecting on the light brown skin of his back.

The silence was broken by Artemis suddenly vomiting for a third time, retching and coughing amidst the sound of something splashing into the tub. It was long and painful.

Jarlaxle ran a hand through Artemis' hair, drawing it away from the man's face. "It's alright," he said. "It'll be alright." He sighed. "My, my, you don't hold it in very well, do you. This isn't your first time, I trust?"

"Trust nothing. The most I had before was wine watered down with…water." Artemis retched again, but though his stomach heaved, nothing came out. "That and a mug of beer over the span of six hours."

"That's not enough to get a _halfling_ drunk," Jarlaxle said.

"I know."

"Well, don't drink again," Jarlaxle said.

"You're not my…" Artemis stopped before he completed the colloquialism. He had to draw on those sayings to get him by while his head hurt too much to think. But now, of course, his lack of judgement had led him to pick the stupidest, most hurtful… worst…"What I say might come to be offensive." He was expressionless. "Bathe me. Please. I'm sincerely afraid of drowning in my current state, and I feel filthy. I'll never be able to go to sleep like this in that expensive bed."

Jarlaxle blinked, unable to assimilate what he'd just heard. "Are you…sure?" he asked almost timidly. "You would…be comfortable with that?"

"Yes."

Jarlaxle looked like he wanted a longer explanation. Artemis growled in exasperation. "Just get a clean change of clothes," he said. "Please."

The drow kissed him on the side of the neck.


	5. Chapter 5: Regrets

Regrets

---------------------

With the splashing of the warm water as a backdrop, all Artemis could think about were his regrets. He hardly noticed Jarlaxle's ministrations; he leaned back in the tub and stared at a blank white spot on its porcelain shell. Things came to him in chains, things that happened in no connection with each other that he now found had been stuck together somehow in his head while he wasn't looking. The innocent recollection of talking to Sha'lazzi in a coffeehouse, the scent of burnt beans bitterly invading his senses, led suddenly into the memory of Pasha Basadoni dying, and before he could stop it, the same furtive grief came back to him.

The sense of grief was an uneasy twinge, guilt ridden, like a lost child wandering in after seeing a beautiful festival in the streets at the expense of knowing that his parents didn't know where he had been. Somehow, he'd always kept himself from fully realizing that it was his fault, and alternately, if he ever let himself relive the memory of killing the old man, he'd never simultaneously remember his sense of loss. Now the two were combined, and shame tightened on him, grinding into him unbearably like a thumbscrew.

Shame that invaded his memory of trying to buy Charon's Claw. It changed further, changing into bitterness and despair tempered with self-loathing, a vision of himself trying to buy his own soul from someone.

That was when the tears came. There was a sickening jerk, as if he'd been knocked off his feet, and three or four tears burst out and trickled down his face – he'd been trying to buy his soul for his entire life. He'd been running, trying to get away, without ever being able to save his soul. No sooner would he feel free than someone else would have control over him, than someone else knew too much but were too powerful to kill, and he was wrenched into servitude again.

He cried audibly, shoulders shaking, and finally was able to let it out into the open, at last letting the uncontrollable tangle of emotion loose. There'd been no time when he felt fully peaceful inside, never letting himself be. Now he felt that tightness easing in his chest and that peace in its wake, when he let himself grieve.

He'd killed Basadoni because he wanted to be free. He'd wanted to be free. No more accusing shadows, doubts of what lay in his own character, pointing at him, plaguing him, inventing new atrocities or new kinds of mercilessness. It wasn't any of those things he'd been afraid of being the reason, it was only that he'd been afraid. A small part of him that had seized control, the hidden pain of being at someone else's mercy and being unable to do a single thing about it. He hadn't given in to some secret evil at that moment; he was afraid and trying to be free.

He was free. Now he was crying, and he was free. "Jarlaxle," he said between the sounds of his crying, "I know why I did it now, oh, Jarlaxle."

"It's alright," the drow said. He didn't understand, Artemis could see that on his face, but he wrapped his arms around Artemis anyway and held him close. He was sitting in front of Artemis in the bathtub, leaning in to rest his head on Artemis' chest and holding the assassin close.

Artemis let himself cry.

He settled back down into his more customary pool of thought, taking in every sensation and every bit of information at once, to find that Jarlaxle was still holding him, and that his face was cold and wet, several tears still making their journey downward on each cheek.

He didn't know how long he'd been crying, and that man was still holding him, warming his torso with the elf's own, making sure that Entreri knew he wasn't alone. The most vulnerable moments of his life, and this man was still with him. This way Jarlaxle had with him renewed how he felt about the elven mercenary.

They met eyes, and he couldn't resist saying it again. "I love you…" Jarlaxle kissed his shoulder, then his neck. "I do," Artemis said. "I love you." He waited uncertainly for a reaction, feeling Jarlaxle pressing against him, both hands on Artemis' shoulders. There was no longer any eye contact.

"I would rather trade my life…than to have you die," Jarlaxle said. Artemis saw that he was frowning. "And believe me. I did not trade for my life in vain. I would rather the sun burst, turn into a ball of dying flame, than give up what I have always believed is rightfully mine. But to see you live, and die, in front of me, that is harder to tolerate than giving my soul back to Lloth and telling her to be done with it." He sat in silence, then said, "That is why it took a toll on me so to witness the great Artemis Entreri trying to dispose of himself as if he were nothing to me. You are something to me; something I would damn myself for if I tried to replace it with anyone or anything else. It is unacceptable. I need you, and for you there is no substitute; only you will do." He looked up at Artemis and met his intense gray eyes. "If that is something that you call love, I hope it is adequate." It was a statement of truth, without any frills, there were no emotions, no sarcasm, no lies artfully mixed in to create a more aesthetic whole.

The thing he wanted to be able to give to Artemis, which he believed the man truly needed, was a thing that was a foreign concept to him. He didn't know if he would ever understand it, if anything he could feel could ever qualify for it, or if he would even know if he felt it. He wanted it to be something he could give. But that want wasn't good enough. That want wouldn't give Artemis an end to the human's emptiness, wouldn't fill it up and make him whole.

Humans needed to be loved by someone; it was built into them, ingrained from birth –he knew that humans were taught to believe that they were to feel unworthy, unloved, if they believed themselves to be deprived of such outside admiration. They were taught that if no one loved them, then they must be somehow useless or worthless as a person.

No such thing was ever said to a drow child – and why would it be? That was impractical, an unnecessary thing to have, someone else's approval. It meant far more to make decisions based on what one could get away with, what one could contrive, and try only to please their own selfish desires.

Selfish, in fact, wasn't even a word in Drow. Not in the manner that humans represented it. In Drow, the equivalent of 'selfish' was a compliment. To care for someone else was discouraged since…well, practically for as long as humans were told they needed 'love', Jarlaxle supposed.

The mindset of their societies were completely opposite. It's a miracle that he and Artemis had managed to relate at all. But then, he knew a little about being 'human', and Artemis knew a little about being 'drow'. They'd gone from there and worked their own system of interactions out.

What it meant to trust someone completely apparently meant the same thing in both societies. If unwarranted, the answer was death. If deserved…'love'. Jarlaxle ran his fingers through a lock of Artemis' hair, playing with it absently. "I think I love you."


	6. Chapter 6: Music

Music

----------------

Throughout the winding suite of rooms Kimmuriel had most recently claimed as his own, there was a sound in the hallway that Jarlaxle had not expected to find in these cool, pristine caves delicately formed of blue-gray stone. The drow mercenary smiled. The bell-like tones of the music resonated with the walls strangely, turning the sound of the piano into a sharper-edged sort of clapping echo that became louder and then fainter again as Jarlaxle made his way through the twisting passage.

It was of his own design, which forced him to take a route that bent, snake-like, back on itself several times through library, study, kitchen, dining nook, and garden alike before reaching the large, arched doors of the room he'd thought, until now, housed some of Kimmuriel Oblodra's more exotic spells and items. He smiled again, wider. Well, it could be that the piano was just one of many exotic things that the psionist had secretly holed away in the room.

The drow mercenary put one hand against the dark wood of the door and listened. The piano was playing a haunting melody, decidedly of human make, for it held none of the sinuous, wailing edge that was the sound of the music of the drow.

My dear Kimmuriel has been busy, Jarlaxle thought. Perhaps he has secured one of the instruments which has been designed to play itself once one has pushed a certain lever. It's doubtful that he would deign to master such a human device himself.

He was expecting Kimmuriel to appear any moment, really, since he knew the psionist could sense anyone and everyone with his talent and the magical items and traps he must've placed around the suite, but the music continued on. In fact, rose to what sounded like a climax of sorts, fraught with frantic energy and desperation and a tantalizing hint of violence.

In spite of himself, his breath caught in his chest for a moment, and he felt his heart beat more forcibly. This emotional response held him motionless in fascination. It was with a note of fearful regret that he realized the notes were growing slower, more painful, fragile with the sense of loss over something held dear.

It occurred to him then that the song might be the vehicle of some sort of spell, and Jarlaxle shook his head sharply to dispel the lingering effects the beautiful sound of the piano had had on him.

He opened the door, which swung out towards him on perfect, soundless hinges, and waited for an invitation to be let inside, not knowing and unable to sense whether Kimmuriel had a precaution in place against being disturbed.

Jarlaxle saw that Kimmuriel was sitting on a bench in front of the piano, his head bent towards it, and his arms moving in slow, graceful gestures. The smile returned to the drow mercenary's face. He was playing the piano, all by himself, and reading from a sheaf of music sitting atop the piano in its holder.

"Ah," Jarlaxle said, narrowing his eyes in amusement at the man's back. "I see even Kimmuriel Oblodra has hidden talents to add to his dazzling array of skills." Since he suffered no ill effects at those words, he walked through the room and put his hand on Kimmuriel's shoulder. "Beautiful song."

Then, and only then, did the thin, aloof drow stop playing. Jarlaxle felt the man stiffen, his shoulder becoming rigid under Jarlaxle's hand. The mercenary's smile turned sad. He withdrew his hand politely.

"Why are you here?" Kimmuriel said. He did not look up from the keys of the piano.

"I didn't surprise you, did I?" Jarlaxle asked.

This was met with silence. The drow mercenary realized he was not going to get an answer to that question, and moments later the psionist said, "I am busy and did not wish to be disturbed."

Jarlaxle switched the topic appropriately to business. "Then I trust that the issues with which you grappled the other day have been resolved?"

He received a curt nod.

"I have come to see for myself whether or not you would be interested in a puzzle of sorts," Jarlaxle said, finally answering Kimmuriel's question.

"I am busy already without one of your irritating conundrums robbing me of the concentration I need to perform my spells," the other man said.

"Ah, but it's not a distraction, it's a form of relaxation!" Jarlaxle held up an index finger, smiling earnestly. "Besides, this one will hone your talents."

Kimmuriel raised an eyebrow expressionlessly in a gesture of skepticism.

"I have a word that I know of in the common language of the humans above which everyone knows, but no one knows what it means, though everyone is taught to use it since their earliest toddling years," Jarlaxle said. "The challenge, whether you choose to take it or not, is to find out what this word means."

"I think it's a trick question," Kimmuriel said, "that you devised with which to mock me when I come back empty-handed."

Jarlaxle held out his hands hastily. "No, nothing of the sort! You will be able to manage this, I am sure. It must mean something. It is a real word, with real importance to these people. There must be a common definition somewhere, but I have been unable to find it. It's impairing my ability to communicate. The only thing I have left is to ask you to cross reference the minds of as many humans as it takes to come up with a working definition for me."

"Sounds like menial labor to me," Kimmuriel said, but the slight peak of interest in his eyes told Jarlaxle differently. The psionist thrived on picking out slim details from people's minds and trying to piece them together into a coherent picture or frame of reference. It was this zeal for detail which led Jarlaxle to be so impressed by him in the first place. However, Kimmuriel knew that Jarlaxle knew this, and so the psionist was wary of being used this way to suit Jarlaxle's ends.

"In return, I am willing to procure something that you have need of," Jarlaxle said. "I never ask favors without being prepared to pay for them."

Kimmuriel frowned. He was considering it. "What, exactly, did you have in mind?"

"Why, my dear friend, anything you need," Jarlaxle said, eyeing the sheets of music in front of Kimmuriel speculatively.

"What is this word? You must at least tell me that for me to be able to begin."

"Of course, Kimmuriel, of course," Jarlaxle said. He grinned. "I have it right here." He tapped his bald head with an index finger. "It's pronounced 'luhvh'."

The psionist sighed. "This is as good a time as any, so I may as well ask if I can request that appropriate payment for this favor be an honest answer to a question." He stirred, putting both hands down on the upholstered bench and swinging his legs over in order to turn to face the man he once considered his superior. Kimmuriel crossed his legs and looked directly into Jarlaxle's eyes. "I have a question that has been plaguing me for over a year. It is inconvenient for me to be so stymied, particularly since it has invaded my sleep."

The drow mercenary was almost unbearably curious. He struggled to maintain his casual expression, shrugging. "Well, I'll see what I can do," he said. "What is it?"

"Why have you allowed me to keep living," Kimmuriel said with a piercing stare, "in addition to granting me half of the organization of which you have been the sole parent?"

Jarlaxle didn't know what to say; he stared back at the psionist in silence. Of all the questions the man could possibly have asked, this one had never crossed his mind. He'd never expected the man to question him. Most drow, when given an opportunity, do not care why it has been given, only that it materialized, and that they can take it. He'd… He supposed he'd counted on the psionist never to take a risk in asking Jarlaxle what it was all about. Therefore, Jarlaxle had never acknowledged any need to understand himself why he had done it.

He reached up and took the brim of his purple hat, jerking it nervously. Well, he'd just have to do as Kimmuriel asked and trade information for information. He couldn't very well enter into a contract with Artemis as he suspected he would be by uttering those words humans deemed so important, if he didn't know what he was swearing to. He'd have to figure out why he did it, and quickly. But the only explanation that came to mind was so contradictory to the drow mindset that he despaired of ever being able to twist it into something Kimmuriel would find believable.

But then, everyone in Bregan D'aerthe knew he was an oddball, so why not just say it and see how Kimmuriel reacted?

Jarlaxle adjusted his hat a final time. "It might not make sense to you, and it may be that it never will. But I'll never be able to kill someone, I'll never be able to see myself with any sort of honor if I don't live down the consequences when there is someone who opposes me who is as right as I was wrong," the drow mercenary said, deadly serious. There was a cost to him to say the words so openly. It reopened wounds of the soul that he'd hoped were long closed.

Kimmuriel stared at him. It was as close as he got to openly gaping in shock.

"You were right, and I was wrong," Jarlaxle said, forcing it out into the open, forcing himself to take the last little damning step. "I should not have done what I did, and everything that I did once that artifact was in my possession," he frowned bitterly, "every little thing that I did was wrong. You _should_ be alive. I should be the one who's standing in my grave." Jarlaxle turned away and started walking, and Kimmuriel didn't stop him.


	7. Chapter 7: Jarlaxle's Thinking

Jarlaxle's Thinking

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When Jarlaxle returned to the room, the room was dark, and Artemis was peacefully slumbering in the bed. His black hair was beginning to become ragged as he grew it out longer, and now it was drying against the pillow in matted little spikes under his head. Jarlaxle stood in the doorway for a moment, content to smile at him. The mercenary watched Artemis as he slept with a comfortable feeling of protectiveness.

There was nothing to keep him from Jarlaxle, and Jarlaxle knew there were no opponents to overcome, least of which Artemis himself. It was done, then. In a strange way, he possessed Artemis now, and he knew that Artemis would be incapable of taking himself out of Jarlaxle's grasp without good reason – Which I'll never give him, the drow mercenary vowed silently, moving his gaze along Artemis' body, mostly covered by the down comforter on the bed.

We'll have to get back to taking missions soon, Jarlaxle thought. We've been jobless far too long. I wonder what this town has to offer. Perhaps they will only be small jobs, but that might be a nice change; give Artemis time to adjust. Yes. Perhaps we can build our reputation here. I wonder what Kimmuriel will turn up on the subject of 'love'. He might just learn something while he's at it.

Then Jarlaxle's thoughts were drawn back to the discussion he'd had with Artemis before he slipped away to consult Kimmuriel.

They were in the bathtub, warm water lapping around them, the soothing heat seeping into Jarlaxle's exposed muscles. "I think I love you."

"What does it mean?" Artemis said. The look in his gray eyes was lost.

"I don't know."

Artemis drew strong, wet arms around him. Their bodies slid against each other. The Calimshite pulled him, turning, changing positions until Jarlaxle's back was pressed against the side of the tub where Artemis had been. Artemis drew close, tilting his head, and his mouth opened slightly, questing. Jarlaxle tilted his own mouth up to meet the assassin's, and they kissed slowly, feeling each other's mouths with a new kind of exploration.

They lay in each other's arms for a long time. Neither one of them spoke. The water was slowly turning cold.

"Jarlaxle, what does Tyr want from me? I've gone back and forth from hating him to wanting him to come down and explain everything to me, from not caring who or what he is to wanting to make him listen by doing anything I can to get his attention. No matter what I do, I can't escape him," Artemis said. He closed his eyes.

"Even in my worst moments, when I'm tempted to turn back on myself and everything I've done and obliterate it, something stays my hand, and I think it's all those things he said to me. Even when he was beating me, he told me what was right and what was wrong. He showed me how to be honorable. The reason I know the things he did to me are wrong, the reason is that he _taught_ me the difference between justice and cruelty."

He shut his eyes more tightly against his impulse to start weeping again. "You must have seen worse things than that. You must know about why people do these things; tell me. What was he doing? And why? I don't understand. I'll never understand. What he did was wrong, and so is anyone that would do that to a child…Or _anyone_."

"I can't say," Jarlaxle said. "I never met the man." He held Artemis and tried to think, but all he could think about was a little boy almost being beaten to death every day until no more resistance was left. He sincerely hoped that the man that Artemis was talking about was dead, or else he would have to kill the man to still his aching conscience. "Some…do it because they are mad. Others, because they see children as objects and not as the people they someday become if they survive such rough treatment. Sometimes…people enjoy it for no other reason than that they thrive on violence."

"Does it happen to everyone down there?"

By 'down there' Jarlaxle assumed that Artemis was talking about the Underdark. "The society is different there," Jarlaxle said, making an awkward attempt to cushion his answer. "It seems like a violation of rights up here, but down there, you don't have a choice. The weaker are subjugated by the stronger. It's…natural down there." He hated saying it like that; it wouldn't make Artemis feel any better. "People are raped to varying degrees in that society because that is how we have learned to have sex." Explaining it rationally somehow made it sound worse. Jarlaxle winced at his own words.

"Then you have been…"

"For most of my life," Jarlaxle said, resting his hand on Artemis' shoulder, trying to judge his companion's reaction and shove down the sickness in his stomach at the same time. "As you can see, consensual sex is a novelty to me, which was one reason that I began…ah…taking in as much of it as possible upon my arrival on the surface."

"And here I just thought you were cheap," Artemis said, smiling as though it hurt and trying to make a joke, chuckling, but the sound wouldn't quite work.

"I am possibly the worst choice for a lover you could have made," Jarlaxle said. "When it comes down to it, I don't really know anything about consensual relationships."

"Well, you're doing a pretty good job," Artemis said, leaning in to nuzzle Jarlaxle's cheek. His right eyebrow was raised, and that, along with the glint in his eyes, gave the impression of a sardonic expression. "For someone who doesn't know what they're doing." He wrapped one arm all the way around Jarlaxle's thin waist. His eyes darkened. His other hand slid inch by inch down Jarlaxle's stomach; the assassin smirked, savoring every ripple of muscle that made up Jarlaxle's abdomen. "After all," he said. "You've consummated your relationship with me two times since we began, and it's only been a matter of weeks."

Jarlaxle's breath was hitching in his chest; he was struggling to keep calm as he stared straight down at Artemis' hovering hand. "Have I been going fast, going too fast for you?" he asked, breathlessly. He tried to maintain his detached air of friendly concern.

Artemis leaned in and kissed him; again the slow exploration of tongues. Artemis shifted against him. When the assassin parted their mouths from each other, he came away smiling. Then he placed his hand on the delicate instrument Jarlaxle considered to be the source of his manhood.

Jarlaxle twitched. The drow mercenary's back bumped against the wall of the tub, and his eyes were startled wide, staring into those of his companion.

Artemis smiled with an expression of dark enjoyment on his face. He raised an eyebrow, and ran his fingers over it as if to reassure his companion that he had nothing sinister in mind.

Jarlaxle leaned back, draping himself over the rim of the tub. Due to his flexibility, when he relaxed and closed his eyes he leaned far enough back that his head was entirely upside down over the edge. His arms were draped loosely over the rim on either side of him. He let out a small, shuddering sigh. Artemis' hand was moving back and forth, slowly and gently. The water now cooled to the point where it was noticeable, but not chilly, soothing.

The world faded out into a series of pale, blurry dots. There was a feeling almost like pain that Jarlaxle would do almost anything to get rid of. In a small corner of his mind where the world retained its sharpness he knew what that feeling was, and so he knew it wasn't anything dangerous. A warm tingling spread throughout his body along with the uncontrollable sensation to move, twitch, thrash, anything to escape the warm paralysis, the inability to move that he was encased in. His mind was filled with different images and sensations of him touching and kissing Artemis. His overwhelming impulse was to enact them.

He struggled back to awareness in order to reach Artemis, but he hit a wall of warm sensations, and his vision was clouded. The only response he could muster from his body was the feeble twitch of an arm, and unbending his knee, his leg flopping out straight with a splash in the water. Artemis was grinning at him.

Jarlaxle, standing in the dark room, shook his head at the sleeping Entreri and grinned. He rubbed his neck somewhat self-consciously, feeling embarrassed. He was blushing, and he thought that if Artemis woke up, he'd make quite a sight, milling around and staring foolishly. He wasn't reluctant to get into bed with Artemis, it wasn't that.

He imagined Artemis touching him again, and before he could really think about it, he reflexively skittered backwards, inching away from the bed.

Why was he so embarrassed? What did he have to be embarrassed about? He hadn't done anything unusual.

He hadn't not been touched that way before; he'd been acclimated to touching everywhere on his body. He couldn't be embarrassed that Artemis had done it, he'd let Artemis do it before.

Why? he mouthed silently into the darkness of the still room. Why did I react so strongly when Artemis touched me this time? He…I never felt that into it before. I'm always detached. Always. I never get so close that I lose perspective.

There was a strange feeling, like lightheadedness, that he felt in his head. He frowned. He'd heard from other mercenaries who'd joined his group that there were various plants which made them feel pleasurable sensations when smoked. Some of his mercenaries were strange, foolish misfits who in spite of their obvious skill at what they did somehow needed ways to escape. Jarlaxle's Bregan D'aerthe was one of those ways, but where he failed, his mercenaries found various therapies to improve their moods. He never objected, of course. After all, they knew better than to let it interfere with their job.

But he'd never had a very high opinion of false happiness. Something real was always better.

"And this is real," Jarlaxle murmured, confused, gazing at Artemis again and stroking his chin.


	8. Chapter 8: History Repeats

History Repeats

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Jarlaxle paced throughout the hours of the night.

Back in Bregan D'aerthe, he was given an uninterrupted space in which to think, uninterrupted even by his two lieutenants, even though they would come to his room expecting him to be available and stand on the sidelines, watching him wear his boot soles thin.

But I am not in Bregan D'aerthe any more, he reminded himself. I am up here, on the surface. See how superior it is? Breathe the superior, top-world air! Breathe it! Breathe it in, feel its power, and breathe it out. Ahhhh. Don't you see how much better that is? He inhaled and exhaled, puffing out his chest. It was the air of ideas and inspiration – every breath was different. A different combination of tastes and smells, imparting its information to him as it slipped past his tongue, through his nose. Even now, he mused, turning on his heel and striding back towards the window, someone downstairs is having roasted quail.

Another wonder of the surface! See and feel everything around you, for under the correct circumstances, it may all be eaten! A feast for your eyes is a feast for your stomach. A feast for your _soul_.

But mightn't other things crawling here upon the surface also make a meal of me? Jarlaxle thought. How fine I must be, with pepper and lemon, lying all alone helplessly waiting for vultures to peck my innards out. He sighed. I am never going to get any sleep this way.

What would Zaknafein do? That made his face light up in the darkness. The weapons-master would probably hit him on the head with the hilt of his sword and force him to take a nap through the night under the peaceful cloak of unconsciousness. How wonderful! It's been ages since I had a good knock on the head. I wonder if anything will happen this time. The last time I saw dancing stars. It's too bad that Zaknafein's not here to do the honors.

That's right, I was thinking of Zaknafein lately. I was distracted by Artemis' attempt on himself. Now that a pleasing diversion, he thought, but he didn't really mean it. He was trying too hard. Artemis would never have said goodbye. Jarlaxle glanced over to the sleeping man, with a still smile on his face as he shifted peacefully between the covers. Jarlaxle saw a memory pass before his eyes.

"What's this?" he said in his memory, a dreamlike image constructed of himself. He sat up in his chair, jerking his feet from his desk and setting them on the ground instead as a kobold messenger set a silver platter bearing a note on the middle of his desk.

"A message from House Do'Urden," the kobold squeaked, and Jarlaxle felt his stomach lurch.

He hesitated to reach out and touch it, a grotesque offering to him like a still beating heart lying on an altar. An image that was so real that the ink on his hands, still sticky from the leak in his pen when he wrote in his ledgers, felt like drying blood to him. He resisted a shudder, but the kobold stiffened, making him realize that he had anyway. "Go away now. Why are you staring at me?" the drow mercenary said irritably, waving his hand at the creature.

It ran away, leaving only the disappearing sound of clacking claws against the stone floor.

The note contained only a few lines of script. It hardly qualified as a letter. Jarlaxle felt tears spring to his eyes. It was large and hardly legible – something both his friends had in common – and the letters were formed crudely in a way that made them uniquely Zaknafein's.

THIS IS ZAKNAFEIN. I HOPE YOU DON'T MIND, BUT I'M GOING TO KILL MYSELF. MY SON TURNED OUT TO BE A BIT OF AN IDIOT, BUT HE'S NOTHING IF NOT SOMEONE WORTH SAVING, SO MY HEART WILL GO TO A GOOD CAUSE. I HAVE TO CANCEL OUR DINNER PLANS FOR TOMORROW.

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, YOU BASTARD.

ZAKNAFEIN

AND DON'T CONSIDER BURNING THIS UP. I WANT YOU TO KEEP IT. IF I WANTED YOU TO FORGET WHAT I SAID BEFORE I DIED, I'D COME AND SAY SOMETHING TO YOU SO YOU COULD LOSE IT IN YOUR OLD AGE.

He got it the day it had happened. It only arrived two hours after. When he tried to stop Zaknafein, it was too late. He ran into an empty room, dashed to the weapons room, found it empty, and then ran to the chapel. He didn't know what he thought he would have done. He imagined priestesses gathered around the altar, Zaknafein lying on his back, waiting for them to finish their ritual, and felt numb. His weapons were already half drawn when he burst into the room. But no one was there. And there was still blood on the altar. He collapsed to his knees.

From the viewpoint of someone levitating around the level of the ceiling, he saw someone else – that couldn't be him, he didn't look so tiny and lost. That crumpled figure in the large hat had to be someone else. Then the doors opened, and a woman walked through, wearing the garb of a priestess and only part of Zaknafein's facial features, the rest an unfamiliar jumble that he wanted to tell her was some sort of terrible mistake.

She smirked at the figure crumpled on the floor and said, "Praying to Lloth, Jarlaxle?"

The man crumpled helplessly to his knees tilted his head up at her and smiled a sick, empty smile. The voice that came out was hollow and strained – nothing like his own. It was a distant jack-in-the-box, a nightmarish caricature of his voice. "I tried the one around the corner, but the sign on the door said Out of Service. I would have used mine, but I stepped on a spider yesterday, and the floor hasn't been cleansed and sanctified by a holy ritual yet. I think I need to sacrifice a man who is a necessity to the household but can't be granted a life because he has the wrong genitals and he has an over-fondness for epithets. Can I borrow yours?"

She shrugged smoothly, and smiled, revealing sharp canines. Her eyes were calculating and sly; she was used to the usual array of his antics. "Fresh out. We used up the last one to avoid dishonor and certain death at the hands of our opposition."

Jarlaxle realized that he'd never thanked Vierna for not beating him black and blue and then spilling his blood on the stone tiles until he could hardly scrape together the pride to crawl away. He stopped and turned towards the bed, looking down at Artemis' sleeping form. He felt very old all of a sudden.

Then he woke up with a gasp, finding himself in bed with Artemis, pressed up against the warm of the other man's body. He'd slipped into Reverie without even noticing it. The letter, the flight from Bregan D'aerthe to House Do'Urden, the altar, the blood, the ink on his fingers, it was so real.

His head fell back against the pillows. Had _been _so real. And it had all gotten jumbled up in his head. He'd began thinking about Artemis' suicide letter, and somehow it had all come to his letter from Zaknafein, and knowing what was going to happen before it did, but then getting there and not knowing that it had happened. He held his head in his hands. It had all been very strange, in the manner of Reveries.

And when did he decide to get into bed?

He didn't remember making that decision.

Had he dreamed pacing?

No, he must have exhausted himself with the real pacing all night long, and then dreamed the very last part of it, the contemplation of Zaknafein and Artemis and the annoying platitude of history repeating itself and all that.

_Does_ history repeat itself?

No, Jarlaxle thought. It may seem that it does to the uneducated observer, but the future is always different than the past! The outcomes may be the same, but four added to one being five isn't the name as two and three's sum being five. They are different paths, with different meanings. And I stopped it this time. Four plus one doesn't equal five! It equals six! He blinked, recognizing the fallacy of his own thoughts, probably due to a lack of restful Reverie.

Because I'm doctoring the books, he said to himself. No one will ever know. As he snuggled in deeper next to Artemis, it occurred to him that Fate, Destiny, and the Spider Queen probably all had found out about five seconds after he'd done the deed and were just waiting for the right time to pounce on him.

Oh well, I like it that way, he thought. Then he thought, a little uneasily, Do I say that to myself because it is true, or because I hope it will be someday because I can't really help myself and sinking spirits will drown me as surely as a sinking ship?

"Stop worrying," Artemis murmured deep in his throat, smiling at Jarlaxle even though he was still asleep. His admonishing comment had become habitual of late. Perhaps he could sense when the drow mercenary was having his doubts.

"That's easy for you to say," Jarlaxle said, grinning at the sleeping assassin. He kissed the scruffy man on the lips and then closed his eyes.


	9. Chapter 9: Zaknafein

Zaknafein

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"I killed her," he said, suddenly lost in the horror of it. It was as if he'd fallen down a chasm and broken every bone of his body, tearing his flesh from the inside out. He felt pain upon pain upon pain, little pains from throughout his body which piled on top of each other until he was shaking.

"Killed who?" Zaknafein said. He stared at Jarlaxle, standing there with a tense expression and his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. They were in the Weapons Master's gymnasium, surrounded by the racks of weapons against the walls and alone in the large, empty space cleared for training and sparring. He kept glancing at the windows and exits.

"Zulameza," the drow mercenary said. He squeezed the name out past a tightness in his heart.

"Oh, her," Zaknafein said. "I don't see why you didn't do it earlier. Spider wenches are all alike – sooner kill you than have sex with you. Don't even want you to do anything but lie there and wait for them to finish. Disgusting."

Jarlaxle knew that his friend had been forced into the situation of being Malice's lover, and had been lover to many members of the weapon master's own common House before that, before he'd made much of himself at the academy. When Jarlaxle had met Zaknafein, he already hated women with a passion that was indomitable. Even Jarlaxle's stories of Zulameza hadn't changed his mind.

"I can't see that it's much of a loss," Zaknafein said, breaking the silence. "After all, she'd had it coming some time. What'd she do? Piss you off?"

The drow mercenary retreated into a state of numbness gratefully, clinging to it with everything he had left. The truth then burst out of him, just when he'd thought he was calmer. "I made her commit suicide," he said, and suddenly he was crying, and wobbling, trying to make his way to Zaknafein's body as unsteadily as if there were an earthquake under his feet. Jarlaxle reached out, wanting to cling to Zaknafein for dear life and hoping it would pass.

The weapons master caught Jarlaxle by the shoulders and looked around fiercely. "We can't talk here," Zaknafein said. The fire never really left his eyes, and Jarlaxle wondered if his friend was angry at him.

Zaknafein led him across the room, down a hallway, and yanked open a door on the right side. He dove inside, pulled Jarlaxle through the door, and then shut it.

"You're lucky I'm allowed a door," Zaknafein said. He looked around, and gestured to his small bed. That was one of the only furnishings a person could sit on in this tiny room, so Jarlaxle walked the four steps from the door and sat down on it. The mattress didn't yield as much as his own, but it was surprisingly soft, for a hardened warrior like Zaknafein.

Zaknafein stayed by the door, obviously feeling that he needed to bar it from intrusion. "Why did you come here? There's no way that you're going to have more privacy here than you would in your own home." Harsh concern penetrated his angry demeanor.

Jarlaxle looked at the other drow fearfully, trembling. His own magic, carefully stored away through his body and clothing, didn't make him feel any safer. His hat was at an awkward angle, almost falling off his head. "I don't know."

He stared at Zaknafein's bare torso, his friend naked from the waist up. The weapons master's skin shone from the exertion of his work out, which Jarlaxle had undoubtedly interrupted by walking into the room unannounced. He perceived for the first time that the delicate musculature of his friend's body was oddly beautiful.

"You don't know?" Zaknafein repeated.

Jarlaxle's response showed his disorientation. "I was walking…" He didn't really know why he'd found himself walking along the familiar street that would lead to House Do'Urden, and why he didn't stop himself, or couldn't, even though he knew what he was about to do. Grief will do that to you, he thought, and that thought was outside the dream.

He reached into a secret pocket of his vest and drew out a tiny red gemstone. "This will seal the room," he said. He held it aloft, gently, by the tips of his fingers. A beam of light shot through it. "_Agrrach_."

Zaknafein stumbled back against the door as the red light bathed the entire room, muttering a curse and rubbing his eyes. Jarlaxle, who was used to it, didn't even blink. When the light faded, he put the gemstone away.

His gaze dropped to the black rug on the floor in front of Zaknafein's bed. He guessed that it must be there to provide some comfort to Zaknafein so that he didn't have to feel his bare feet against the icy stone floor. Such little things indicated that there was more to Zaknafein than being a warrior. These hints were things that poignantly spoke to Jarlaxle about his friend's yearning for comfort, a yearning only blooming in those who had a hope for safety, a reliance on the idea that there would be a future for them.

And he doesn't have one, Jarlaxle thought. Tears welled up and dropped from his eyes, brushing his cheeks on the way down and sinking silently into darkened spots on the sheets of Zaknafein's bed. It's my fault. I should have done something. I should have done something. I could have used my influence to help that boy, or change the direction of Matron Malice's thinking, and I could have given them an excuse not to sacrifice Zaknafein. I could have made a deal. I didn't have a family! I should have gone! An upheaval in his stomach almost made him vomit. "I don't have a family!" Jarlaxle exclaimed.

Zaknafein was at his side instantly, kneeling in front of the bed and looking up at him with one hand on his arm and the other holding his hand. The kindness and openness that only came about when one of his friends was in danger shone through on Zaknafein's face. A family. That was something he could understand. "Did you try to start one?" he asked.

"Please, I, oh…" Jarlaxle looked away and blew his nose on a black handkerchief hastily pulled from his vest pocket.

Zaknafein rose to his feet. "Move over," he said. He helped Jarlaxle slide over to the foot of the bed. Then he unlaced his boots, pulled them off, and set them beside his rug. He gratefully climbed onto the thin bed and stretched out, sinking back against his pillows with a grateful sigh. Jarlaxle didn't know what was going to happen next. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Zaknafein. He had his pillows propped against the wall, and he was reclining against them in a sitting position. He reached out and took Jarlaxle's wrist, pulling the drow mercenary towards him.

Zaknafein encircled Jarlaxle with his arms. "Now tell me about it, alright?"

Jarlaxle's heart was beating wildly in his chest. He knew what was going to happen, and he didn't want it to. He wanted to run from the room and find some way to wake up before it happened again. He didn't think he could bear it if he was forced to experience it again.

Zaknafein's hand reached up and began stroking the back of his head. His friend's expression was patient, and calm, everything he wished he was at that moment. It was just as though they were back at the academy, stealing a moment to be alone by skipping their meditation and meeting at the empty bunks where they and the rest of their peers slept at night. They'd done that so many times, talking in hushed voices and hand signals, saying things that no one else would ever dare to say. Helping each other with their problems, talking about what bothered them, even voicing doubts about teachers, priestesses, Lloth, the surface.

Against his will, he felt himself relax against Zaknafein's chest. He felt confused, as he had felt the first time, and the sensation of his skin against Zaknafein's sweat-slicked skin was new and somehow wondrous. He rested his head against Zaknafein's collarbone and began. Or, he meant to. But his throat constricted as he tried to say the words, and suddenly he was crying, sobbing. "My mother sacrificed me and now I've gone and killed the first woman who would lie with me unpaid," Jarlaxle said, shutting his eyes and hiding against Zaknafein's frame. "I don't know what to do anymore."

Zaknafein's hand stopped on the back of his neck. "Your mother…" he said.

"Wasn't Hostess Trionne of the Pain Gardens," Jarlaxle said. "I lied. Please forgive me. I lied. I lied to protect who I really am and what I really did. I'm alive because every child I will ever have will die in the sacrifice of Lloth, because the first one that lives will replace me, and I will die."

He spoke so quickly that Zaknafein didn't interrupt. He was trying to keep Zaknafein from saying anything, getting a word in edgewise.

"They're dead, all of them, children I will never have, and when I told Zulameza that we have to kill this one, too, she said no. She cried. She locked herself in her room. She wouldn't let me in. I banged and banged and she wouldn't let me in, I cried out her name, and she wouldn't let me in, and I pleaded with the door from one end of the day to the other, and she wouldn't let me in. Finally, the next morning, I found the door unlocked." Jarlaxle squeezed against Zaknafein tighter, trying not to see it in his imagination, "- and there she was – all dead – hanging from a floating chair – I couldn't stay…"

His shoulders shook weakly, and he wasn't sure if he was sobbing, or trying to laugh. No sound would come out. "I don't even know what day it is. Is it still yesterday?"

Zaknafein was silent for a long while. Then he said, "I've never heard of someone managing to escape from the Spider Queen before…even if it did cost them everything they had. She never lets go, no matter what price paid. She did for you." He looked at Jarlaxle directly. "Why?"

"I don't know," Jarlaxle said. He felt very tired. He sagged in Zaknafein's arms. "I wish that it had never happened. I should be the soul of one who has never lived. That would be better than this nonsense you people call a life." He stirred sluggishly, and sank deeper into Zaknafein's embrace. "What is a life, really? What is it but having to walk along a road with everyone mugging you, and trying to yank you off into the abyss on either side. And when you get to the end of the path, all that stands in the barren field is a sign that proclaims, 'Now, you too, mere mortal, shall die, like everyone before you and everyone after'."

Jarlaxle closed his eyes, and waited, for if this was the very end of his life, as he felt it must be, then death would fall upon him, and he would fade back into the room that haunts his nightmares. Instead, he felt life flow through his limbs, beckoning him to open his eyes again.

He looked at Zaknafein, and felt nothing but the ache of despair in his body, weighing him down. "What did I do wrong?" he asked, asking Zaknafein to judge his life, explain to him why the balance of good deeds to damning ones was so predisposed to the latter.

"Nothing," Zaknafein said. He saw the flicker of disbelief in Jarlaxle's eyes, so he said, "Nothing that could be helped." His fingers moved over the back of Jarlaxle's head, gentle, touching the drow mercenary's scalp. "That's just the way life was made." He laughed, a sharp, harsh sound that almost became a cough. "We're all sinners."

I took it to heart, Jarlaxle thought, looking at Zaknafein, trying to fix every detail in his mind, caress it, hold it and keep it safe. I don't worry so much now. Not about that, anyway…We did the best we could…

He worked himself up to what was coming next, inching himself closer to it, futilely trying to make a slow approach to a flame hurt less than a sudden plunge into the fire. "Then one more sin won't hurt the teeming cesspool that we call a society, will it."

Zaknafein rolled his eyes. "What've you done now, you sorry bastard?"

"It's not what I've done, it's what I'm about to do," Jarlaxle said. He was sorry that Zaknafein really had no idea. His fingers traced circular patterns on Zaknafein's chest. He smiled faintly, tilting his head, examining with self-deprecating amusement the look of ignorance in Zaknafein's eyes. "You see, while you've been my friend all this time, I've been lusting after you."

He shrugged, beginning to blush. "Shocking, I know, isn't it, my poor friend. Such naughty thoughts to belong to a trusted associate that you've slept with, helped survive the cannibalistic world of the fighting school, and supported through his personal crises all these years. You don't know the things that I want to do to you. If you did, no doubt you'd have me at the wrong end of a trident just to keep me a safe distance away." He smiled at Zaknafein charmingly.

"I don't believe you," the warrior said, slowly breaking into a grin and giving him a long look of disbelief. Zaknafein uttered a few confused chuckles. Jarlaxle said nothing, merely shook his head, and Zaknafein said, "Come on, you're bullshitting me."

"I'm going to seduce you," Jarlaxle said. Zaknafein gave him a look of incredulous amusement. He shifted his weight to his knees and straddled Zaknafein's legs. "Right here, on this bed." He patted it. "Right now." Zaknafein still didn't believe him. "You'll be wooed by me. You'll be begging me to stop, and then begging me to go on."

"Alright, that's enough," Zaknafein said. "I think you've breathed in some poisonous spores from some of those mushrooms right outside of town, because I'm doing no such thing. Get off my legs, and get off my bed." He put his hand on Jarlaxle's chest and gave him a half-playful shove.

Instead of leaving, Jarlaxle slipped past Zaknafein's defenses and drew close, tracing his fingers in a circle on the weapons master's bare chest and kissing his friend on the lips. There was a moment when Zaknafein tried to draw away, but Jarlaxle drew Zaknafein's mouth more fully into his own. The weapons master fell back against the pillows between him and his stone wall, chest heaving and eyes closed. Zaknafein began pushing back, his tongue moving against Jarlaxle's. He seemed to return Jarlaxle's passion almost against his own will.

The mercenary leaned in, melting against Zaknafein, and in a rare moment, he closed his own eyes. It was just the way he'd imagined it. Zaknafein…was so strong, but he was careful, reigning in a fiery, overwhelming passion that threatened to burst from him and consume Jarlaxle at any moment. So dangerous, but so intoxicating, appealing, satisfying.

He nibbled at Jarlaxle's lips, his hands clenching and then unclenching. The warrior compulsively clutched at his chest, and each time Jarlaxle's heart started beating faster, thinking that Zaknafein was going to turn the tables on the situation and force Jarlaxle into submission. His fingernails dug into Jarlaxle's skin, but then he moved his trembling fingers away, trying not to scratch his friend.

Shuddering, Zaknafein forced his arm between them and gasped, trying to get his breath back. He fell against his pillows, now lopsided and out of shape, his silvery white hair falling into his face. He looked so beautiful that Jarlaxle wanted to reach out and tough him to make sure that he was real.

"You smug bastard," Zaknafein said, his breath catching in his lungs. "You sealed this room for a _reason_." His eyes held some indescribable emotion so intense that it changed his entire face. "You planned to do this to me all along."

"I'm sorry," Jarlaxle said, putting his hands on the brim of his hat and to try to adjust it so that it wouldn't fall off his head. Then he decided to take it off and hold it in his hands. He looked down at it. "I'm so sorry."

They sat there in silence, listening to Zaknafein slowly regaining his breath. He lay there, propped up on one elbow, until beads of sweat stopped forming on his forehead and running down the side of his face. Then he sat up fully and said, a hard glint in his eyes, "You think it's that easy, do you? You're not getting away with this until I'm done with you." He surged forward, tackling Jarlaxle and pinning him to the bed, one arm across Jarlaxle's throat. When he pressed his full weight down on it, Jarlaxle choked.

The drow mercenary gaped helplessly, trying to breathe, his expression dazed. He struggled to sit up, and was forced back down again by Zaknafein cutting off his air completely. Spinning dizziness instantly took the strength from him. He had the sensation of falling, even though he also felt the smooth sheets of the bed against the back of his head. The dizziness left him and his vision snapped back to sharpness as Zaknafein grabbed his wrists and forced a vicious kiss upon him, biting his upper lip so fiercely that Jarlaxle tasted blood.

"I hated all those bitches you would lie with," Zaknafein said, his eyes blazing with anger reaching the snapping point after being repressed so long, held in check by morals and necessity. "Zulameza's death made you come running to me? If I'd known that this was going to happen, I would've killed her myself a long time ago."

"You mean that you…" Jarlaxle said, staring up at him with wide eyes.

Zaknafein said, snarling, "Why did you _think _that I stuck by you all these years? Even with our friendship, I should have been glad to part ways with you when we graduated. Our time together was over. We had no reason to need each other. But I did, damn you, and I kept hoping that you'd see it, that you'd look past your nose long enough to realize that it wasn't just you running to me all the time, that I'm here where you can find me for a _reason_ –" He broke off, clenching his teeth and looking away, scowling at nothing.

"Zaknafein…" Jarlaxle said. He paused hesitatingly. Zaknafein reluctantly looked down at him. "Your knee is on my crotch."

Zaknafein looked down, and then shifted. "I'm sorry."

Jarlaxle winced, making a pained smile. "Quite alright. Honest mistake, I'm sure."

"Sorry." Zaknafein looked uncertain, then reached out with a hand. "Do you want me to…"

"No thank you. I do not want you to touch it yet."

Zaknafein said, "I could make it better…"

"No. Thanks all the same. At the moment, that would only cause bruising."

"Oh." Zaknafein looked down at it with a lament on his face.

"Not to worry." Jarlaxle's expression had a slight frostiness to it. "That numb feeling has to go away sometime. I'm sure I will regain circulation soon."

"Are you…?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure. Happens all the time."

"Malice has given me worse."

"I know."

"Females are bitches."

"So I've heard."

Silence.

Zaknafein looked at him with apprehensive curiosity. "Hurt, did it?"

"Incredibly."

Jarlaxle blinked and found himself looking at an unfamiliar ceiling. He shifted, and bumped against the warm, solid mass of Artemis' sleeping body. So I'm back, he thought, looking at Artemis. Feeling the heat from the other man, he shifted closer and wrapped his arms around the assassin.

Artemis' response was to murmur sleepily, then rest his head against Jarlaxle's shoulder and fall more deeply asleep again. He smelled strongly of nutmeg and something sweet.

And you're better than Zaknafein ever was, Jarlaxle thought, stroking his unruly black hair. I'll tell you in the morning.


	10. Chapter 10: Painful Salvation

Painful Salvation

---------------------------------

"I know when it happened for me, but when did it happen for you?" he asked.

He was lying in bed with Artemis, and they had both quietly awakened together by the soft, golden light teasing its way through the closed curtains. It was one of the most glorious mornings of his life. Even the air smelled of sun. The room was thick with the smell of warmth, and living things, the smell of being alive. Mingled together were smells of earth and nutmeg, joined by a full, musky smell that had the sweetness of ginger in it.

His hand rested on the warm muscles of Artemis' chest. The man's light brown skin was firm and slightly rough, something that fascinated him in ways he couldn't describe, but it set off tingles inside his mind. They were together, and everything was still. Jarlaxle thought he might still be asleep. This seemed the idealized perfection of dreams.

Artemis considered the question. "If you're asking when my trust of you happened, it would have to be when we were inside the tent." He glanced at the drow's face, a lazy amusement dancing within his eyes, lightheartedly daring Jarlaxle to suggest that trust had to have come about somewhat sooner than that, or else Artemis would never have played a part in what happened at the Basadoni Guild.

But Artemis' casual reference didn't bring any memories to the surface. Jarlaxle looked back at him curiously. "Tent?"

Artemis' smile turned wicked. He kissed Jarlaxle on the lips teasingly, savoring their contact and then gently biting the drow's upper lip. "You had succumbed to the crystal shard, and so I had to come to rescue you. When we were running away from Dallabad, I took out a tent in the middle of the desert so that we could rest comfortably." He chuckled, and amended dryly, "That is, so I wouldn't die of heat exhaustion and blood loss."

He saw the light of comprehension enter Jarlaxle's eyes. Jarlaxle remembered now. He settled against his lover and emitted the smallest of sighs. "You healed me." He forestalled Jarlaxle's imminent protest and said, "You didn't have to. You thought of what happened as my treachery. Even when asking questions, you still healed me.

That is more than my father would have done. He would have watched me bleed, watching me slowly die, and would have used those magical daggers you favor so much to torture any information he wanted out of me. Then he would have disposed of me and taken the shard."

"Your father is a madman," Jarlaxle said. "They are incapable of reasoning. Only bringing pain." A slight downward twist of his mouth appeared. His manner seeped regret. "Like that evil crystal. I should never have –"

"You were too good," Artemis interrupted. He smiled, shaking his head in both fondness and exasperation. Jarlaxle looked at him incredulously. "The problem is that you were too good – even at its worst, when it destroyed people left and right, tempted you to kill me, asked you to betray the interests of your own people at Bregan D'aerthe, you still asked it if it would be your ally. And each time, it acquiesced, so it could use you further. You couldn't bring yourself to really control it. I dominated it at the time only because I refused partners. Because I shunned the sort of cooperation you were offering it, if it would only behave accordingly."

He nuzzled Jarlaxle's dark cheek. "But alas, it was only a rock."

He grinned slyly as he wrapped his arms around Jarlaxle, squeezing him closer, and rested his head against the drow's shoulder, eyelids drooping as if he were about to fall back asleep. Despite the fact that as an assassin, Artemis would never have done that. He had very strict directives that he invented for himself, rigid rules to keep himself disciplined.

"I won't make that mistake," the man purred in Jarlaxle's ear. "I'm no rock."

Jarlaxle cleared his throat. He was becoming embarrassed. "Back to the subject at hand," he said. "So, me graciously healing you with the orb is the reason you began trusting me."

"Indeed," Artemis said. He blinked, seeming to become more awake again. "And in addition, may I remind you," he said, holding up an index finger and gesturing, almost poking Jarlaxle's nose, "you could have killed me any time you wanted and taken the crystal shard from me while it was still calling you, but you didn't. You took the time to listen to me, and you even watched me sleep without making any inappropriate actions against me."

He smiled mysteriously. "But then, I knew you wouldn't." He snuggled closer to Jarlaxle, if that was even possible, the drow thought, and rested his head on Jarlaxle's chest, something that the drow mercenary noted he was beginning to be fond of.

Jarlaxle felt that there was much he didn't understand. He could feel himself blushing with embarrassment to be in such an uncertain situation. "And I, my friend, began to trust you when you had several chances to leave me behind in the escape from Dallabad, and yet every time, though I was certainly not in the best shape after being robbed of the source of my addiction, you yanked me along like a lost child until I regained my bearings and was able to escape for myself."

"I couldn't leave you behind," Artemis said, nearly falling asleep again to the sound of Jarlaxle's steady heartbeat. "I liked you too much. It's not often that I like people. Why, the only other one is back at Calimport doing wicked business with spirits and spying at a fine establishment of her own making."

The drow mercenary's eyes narrowed in concentration, shifting through his memories. "Dwahvel," he guessed suddenly, a decisive thrust of his voice.

Artemis was silent for a few moments. Jarlaxle was beginning to fear that he'd somehow given his friend a bout of homesickness, or had hurt his feelings. "Yes," Artemis said. He looked straight ahead, his eyes far away and thoughtful. "Dwahvel." He paused again. Jarlaxle thought he looked almost wistful. "Well, she's better off without me," he said finally. He made a resigned shrug and a sigh.

"Truly," Jarlaxle said, a question in his voice. He looked at his friend, eyes gently probing. "Why don't you come back and visit her. It's not as if we've walked off the face of the earth, you know. We have nothing better to do. Enjoy Life. Isn't that our motto?"

Artemis stirred uncertainly. He'd been gone from Calimport so long that most of what had happened there faded back into fuzzy memories gratefully, dead things at last put to rest in his head. It would be like digging up a graveyard to go back. Too many things that went wrong, too much pain, too many things that reminded him of who he was. Had been. And no longer wished to remain.

He was getting better, the further he traveled away from Calimport. The whole world was not an extension of that one city. Cities and places were all different. Not the same. That was the reasoning that he once thought so limited when he found it in Rai-guy and Kimmuriel. The logic of it would apply just as well to himself.

No, Kimmuriel and Bregan D'aerthe retreated back into the shadows underneath Faerun because they couldn't survive up here. They were too much like fish trying to breathe air. So specialized to Menzoberranzan that they couldn't survive, couldn't hope, when they left their comfortable environment.

Artemis had been down that road himself. How much longer before he would have been stuck to Calimport just as surely as fruit candies too hot in the sun melted into one irregular, gooey shape.

That image brought back fleeting memories of having some of the famous little candies, only to have them spilled in the sand by an older boy who cared nothing for a small, quiet child searching for a place to enjoy respite. He'd been left alone, then, sitting on the street corner with his hands clasped in front of his knees, watching the bright red and orange candies grow glistening warm, and then begin to expand, melting into each other and picking up more sand on the ground.

"You look sad, my friend," Jarlaxle said, his expression poignantly concerned.

"I had thought," Artemis said, "that I could escape my past as a child on the streets." Seemingly, he changed the subject, for he said, his tone lightening into that of near fascination, "For an animal, life is hard, but simple. When one's mother dies before her time, it means doom for the child that she can't protect any longer. Either the animal dies, or it is picked to death by a sibling or a friend, or it is preyed upon by other animals, scavengers, who take and break the weakest because it is the minimal amount of trouble."

His expression changed, hardening. Now he looked Jarlaxle in the eyes. "I did not want to be a baby animal."

"You saw this," Jarlaxle said. "You watched the animals in the streets of Calimport."

"Many times," Artemis said, his demeanor that of assurance.

"It must have been quite shocking for you," Jarlaxle said, and he frowned, looking hard at one of his own memories and gently stroking a lock of Artemis' hair.

"It wasn't really after the rites my father put me through," Artemis said. "It was instructive. I knew my place as an outcast, knew that I was different, parentless, and that as such, no one would accept me. I lived on the edge of society, stealing and hiding in old buildings, too old to be worth the trouble of fixing them.

And I knew I wasn't safe. I saw animals around me, outcasts themselves, who had to fight each other for scraps, sometimes killing each other in the harsh existence that was trying to find a way to live. I was a feral animal, and I fought others keeping that in mind, that it was struggle, a struggle of absolutes that had some fairness to it. He or she would try their best, and I would try my best, and the winner lived for the remainder of the day. Sometimes, if we were unlucky, the next half hour or so. Sometimes, the next week. We could never tell.

I had a certain fondness for other waifs like myself, but I knew that I couldn't let it get in the way. They would kill me as surely as I had to kill them."

Artemis shrugged. "So it was no surprise when I became an assassin. A man merely said that if I wanted to work for it, I could take on stronger challenges, defeat older and more cunning animals. And I did."

The assassin glanced at Jarlaxle. "Until I met you," he said, and his expression was mild. As if he still didn't know what to make of that. "I no longer saw myself as an animal, when you took me underground, and I saw the teeming masses of black skinned bodies inhabiting Menzoberranzan. I came to understand that those were animals, and I was not. They could not think outside of their animal barriers. I could. That meant, increasingly, that I should." He looked down at Jarlaxle's thin body contemplatively, not really seeing it.

Jarlaxle's expression clouded. "Oh. Menzoberranzan." He looked rather as though a beautiful woman had trod on his foot. He didn't want to say anything ungallant, but he was definitely in pain. He couldn't hide it, because Artemis brought down his defenses – to the degree where he couldn't even keep his emotions at a safe distance anymore. He felt as though he were parading them around. It made him feel more nude than walking around without clothing ever had.

"Yes," Artemis said. The assassin looked at him curiously. "What is it?"

"I have something to tell you," Jarlaxle said.

Artemis gave him silent attention.

Jarlaxle knew there was a proper way to start it, but he didn't want to. Nonetheless, it was what he had to do anyway. Nightmares would just come back. Even though he felt fine now, he'd feel worse again later. "You know about my wife," he said.

Artemis raised an eyebrow. His voice was rich with amusement as he said, "You're having an affair?"

"I'm referring to Zulameza. Who killed herself. Because of me."

That silenced Artemis' tongue. Something clicked into place. "You think that you cause people around you to commit suicide."

"Why not?" the drow mercenary said with a bitter laugh. "It's a talent. A blessing from the gods. I surround myself with people who are destined to die."

"Everyone dies," Artemis said. He unconsciously tightened his hand around the hilt of his sword. "It's a constant. One of the first rules to becoming an assassin is remembering that people die anyway, and delivering their sentence prematurely isn't so bad."

Jarlaxle felt near tears. His laugh reflected this. He clutched possessively at Artemis, letting out a shudder with an uncontrollable noise halfway between a sniff and a whimper. "But I need them," he said. He shut his eyes against the sudden assault of all these things he'd been carrying around on his back for so long. His voice became rough with anger. "It's not fair. I need you. I needed them. And they died. All of them. They're not supposed to die before I stop needing them!" Burning assaulted his eyes, and he had to actually will the tears threatening to slither out around his defenses to go away. "And I'm just a selfish old man."

It galled him to hear himself say nonsense about people not being supposed to leave until he didn't need their support. One of the constants of his homeland was people pulling the supports out from under you on cue to do the most damage. Well, this is a lot of damage, alright, one of the many versions of himself said to him in his head. You're going to cry like a baby and then put stock in someone else like a child. Mature drow don't need comforting, especially not by a human who has, as yet, no idea what you're talking about.

"You speak of 'everyone', but in my book, you are hardly qualified to use the word to describe a paltry two people," Artemis said. He saw Jarlaxle tense, and his hands ball into fists, as if he were going to strike at Artemis. The assassin held Jarlaxle down by his black wrists and pinned him to the bed, refusing to be deterred.

Jarlaxle's first response was to think of Zaknafein. The Reverie had stirred up long forgotten memories. Rough, callused hands against his wrists. He struggled madly, panicking, knowing that Artemis wouldn't understand why he was trying to escape, but he had to. If only he hadn't stripped down to the point where he'd taken off his cape of dislocation. He could have slipped away.

"What are you doing?" he hissed.

"Restraining you," Artemis said. He was as calm as if they were having breakfast together and he'd been asked to pass the jam. Jarlaxle suddenly thought, infuriated, that Artemis was always this calm. Always this calm when it came to things that made emotions boil under Jarlaxle's skin, trying to sear their way out and erupt.

Something in Jarlaxle cracked. He felt tears running down his cheeks. It couldn't be real. "Zaknafein," his own voice said. "It's Zaknafein." He couldn't feel his own body. He sobbed helplessly, pathetically, and tears formed and rolled down his face with a force of their own. I couldn't, he thought. I couldn't do such a thing. He felt only emptiness, like he'd been shucked out of his body, confusion, and horror.

Artemis froze, his grip loosening. Zaknafein. The friend that Jarlaxle had mentioned once. The one who'd trained Drizzt Do'Urden. "What about Zaknafein?" he said. His expression was tense as his eyes were fixed on Jarlaxle's.

Jarlaxle didn't try to escape. "I can't tell you," the drow mercenary said, turning away from him and shutting his eyes in agony. A hot poker was tracing its way up his body. His body shook with sobs that he couldn't hear anymore. Guilt felt worse than the two things combined. "I can't, I tell you," he cried. "I don't even know what I'm saying! How can I tell you about anything right now?"

Artemis just stared at him. Then the assassin kissed him on the mouth. They grappled with each other, tossing and turning, churning up the sheets on the bed, hands interlocking. Jarlaxle was half sitting up. Artemis didn't push him back down. He just kept kissing the dark elven mercenary. Artemis felt Jarlaxle slow, the strength in the elf's body receding. The fight seeped out of the dangerous mercenary. The next thing Artemis knew, they were both lying down again, entwined in each other's limbs.

The memory still had a hold on Jarlaxle, invading his senses. He could smell the sharpness of the mold in his sinuses, the bitterness of the extract on his tongue. "I hadn't any choice," the drow mercenary burst out. The feeling of unreality pulled him back under.

Artemis said, "About what? What are you talking about?"

"You wouldn't understand," Jarlaxle said, "you didn't have any childhood friends." His demeanor became anguished. The tears still drying on his face had relieved some of the awful, breaking pressure, but it only gave way to the original feeling that had stripped him down to despair with its razor teeth. "It's the worst thing that could possibly happen. There's nothing worse than someone who you built your entire life on going away."

Then Artemis remembered Jarlaxle's previous comment a few weeks ago about being abandoned by his friend. His gray eyes looked at Jarlaxle searchingly. "He left?"

"He never loved me. How could he?" Jarlaxle turned away, ashamed. "I was only a friend to him. If it came between me and his son, no matter who was the more loyal or deserving –" What am I saying? He felt like throwing up. A moan rose in him. No…Not this again…Not this…Anything but this…

Artemis reached out with gentle hands and caressed Jarlaxle's bare waist. He tried to turn Jarlaxle back towards him. "You were caught between him and his son…" He gathered as much of Jarlaxle's body into his arms as he could. The life Jarlaxle had led when he was a younger captain of his mercenaries had been isolated, and very possibly heartbreakingly lonely, Artemis thought. That sort of isolation could break a person. It had very nearly broken him. In the end, he'd had to turn to someone. He just considered himself lucky that it had been Dwahvel. The kind of suffocation there was in the lives of everyone around you being a game of intrigue was enormous.

He tried to imagine how he could have felt if his relationship with Dwahvel had continued, and he found himself being drawn into a trap where there developed competition between himself and one of Dwahvel's own children for time and affection. An isolated person like him, a person so far beyond the reach of anyone else's comfort, a person like Jarlaxle had been, weaving threads of dependency only to have them cut off on the other side by the only person he considered a friend. Once given a place in their life after everyone else had discarded him, being discarded by the only person left, hurt by the only person that had the power over him to hurt. Simply not being loved.

"I felt for him what I had no right to feel for a man with three children and a Matron Mother as his mistress." Jarlaxle stared numbly at the blank white expanse of a pillow and couldn't remember for the life of him what the object was. When he blinked, more tears welled up and fell, disappearing into the pale fabric. "I was sorry." A tremor passed through him. "It was my fault."

"For…"

The drow curled up, crumpling in humiliation. "I should never have felt anything at all. He did not promise me anything, and if he had, we were drow, he would have been lying. He owed me nothing, and I owed him much. Yet I persisted to borrow from him what I had no right to borrow until the day he died."

Artemis waited for him to say more. He realized that his interruptions weren't helping his companion; they were slowing Jarlaxle and making his progress more painful.

"I borrowed life from him. Whenever I had rightfully deserved to be killed, it was him that spared me and allowed me another chance to live. Scraping back to my feet at his expense. It was wrong."

"You only feel so because you are drow and your people don't have anyone to rely on," Artemis said. He stroked the back of Jarlaxle's head. "But you must have known that the philosophy of your people was wrong, for you built your entire organization on using the combined strength of people to help each other instead of hindering."

"It wasn't practical," Jarlaxle corrected. "The reason I did it was because the common philosophy of my people isn't practical. What I did was wrong."

"Don't you think that killing people without regard for what they could be capable of if you helped them is wrong?" Artemis said.

Jarlaxle shook his head. "The reason it's wrong is that I wanted something in return. Is that not what your people think? Doing things for reward is not altruism, it is pragmatism, or something worse? Selfishness? That to want, and want something no one is willing to give, to want it more than anything else you crave, even food or water –"

His voice broke. He let out a long, tortured sob, as if someone was trying to pull his intestines out with a hook. He was trying in vain to hide from himself. He was cowering before this thing inside of him, the thing he considered his undoing, the trait that unraveled him and left him at everyone's mercy.

"Please," he said, grasping Artemis' wrist. "Please, my friend, tell me it is wrong, it is a twisted desire." He sobbed helplessly, unable to go on for a moment. Then he pulled himself together enough to cry, "Is it – is it – _Wrong_, wrong to be adored and desired –" Jarlaxle felt hot and cold at the same time. "It's wrong to need to be needed the way I need to – to _matter _to someone –"

He writhed in Artemis' arms. "There is nothing I can do to _deserve_ that kind of respect! It is masochistic! It can only hurt me! I cannot make someone desire my company, cannot make them enjoy my presence…" His voice dropped to a whisper. "Cannot make someone assign me importance. I have tried so long and so hard to do so that I feel as though I burst into flames from the sheer friction. To be hated is something I ought to expect, hating myself comes so easily that it must be an emotion attained without thought for those around me."

He closed his eyes. "Oh, deeper and deeper I go into the cavern of the soul, and it is bottomless with a black stain that even I cannot control. What horrors live in this cave." Jarlaxle smiled weakly. "Truly, the further I go, the more deep bat guano I step in, and the worse it smells."

"It's not as bad as all that," Artemis said, looking at him to try and perceive whether or not he truly meant it. The assassin gently laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, and tried again to make Jarlaxle face him. "You exaggerate."

The mercenary said, "Truly, it cannot be an exaggeration, for between a son whose recklessness is a sure sign that he will go down, and drag anyone near down with him, and a friend who has never endangered the man in his entire life, who would never dream of hurting his friend that way, it is quickly that he turns and throws his life away for a boy who will soon die, a lamb in the wilderness of the Underdark."

Artemis tried to sort that one out. Jarlaxle's sentence was hard to follow. However, he believed he knew the gist of it. "You mean that he deserted you."

"I deceived myself," Jarlaxle whispered. He sagged. "I am very good at that. Look at how he laughs and smiles. How much fun he must have, being a survivor, but feeling a dagger twisting inside his guts. How about this next adventure? Maybe he will find a worthy treasure to replace his best friend, make it worthwhile to have lost him –"

He cut himself off and snapped, suddenly changing the subject on Artemis, "- piece of shit best friend." He now seemed angry. "If I were really capable of being anyone's friend, I would have sacrificed my life for Zaknafein's so that he could run off to the Surface with his beautiful baby boy and start life anew. A happy ending! So absurd for a drow's bedtime story! The loose ends tied up! The reclusive, defective character takes his last bow, doing something noble! The audience applauds! Look how they cheer?"

Jarlaxle doubled over, never feeling closer to spewing the contents of his guts all over himself without actually doing it than he felt right now. He felt as though his mind was a spool of thread and someone was slowly unwinding it and pulling it out of his left ear. "Everyone loves a happy ending."

"I don't," Artemis said. He held Jarlaxle closer, kissing him on the temple. "He couldn't have been your friend if he made you feel like this."

"Oh, but he was," Jarlaxle said, with a leer like a court jester. "But I was no friend of his."

"Yes, you were," Artemis said. "You gave him everything you had. That was why you were devastated when he died."

The tears that came welling up from his eyes next felt hot, unhealthy, as if they were searing their way out. Jarlaxle tried to keep his food down. I hate this, he thought inadvertently. Everything gets out of hand. How do I do it? Why do I always do this? You never mourned properly, the voice of reason said. "I couldn't go on," Jarlaxle said. His throat was dry. His voice crackled. "No one…understood. I had to…die." He sagged forward, bowing his head so low that he knew Artemis wouldn't be able to see his face very well.

Then he reverted to his angry state. "I extracted the venom of carnivorous moss. I ate it. It should have killed me, dissolving me from the inside out. Instead, it caused me to throw up, and undid the work I went through to get it from the cave outside the city. And while I was lying there on the cavern floor, and I thought, I was waiting to die. I thought it might still have delayed effect. No one ever lived through ingesting carnivorous moss."

Jarlaxle pounded his fists on the bed. "That was my mistake! I should have eaten the damned glowing things, not extracted their poison! I should have duplicated the same death that comes to commoners every day when they confuse it for benign luminous moss, not emulated it. I lay there, and I recovered. And I couldn't do it again." Hot tears surged forth and raced down his cheeks in twin streaks. "Do you know what it feels like not to die? Do you?" His fists trembled.

Artemis turned him around gently so that they were face to face. Jarlaxle looked into his companion's eyes, and something there silenced him, and turned his tangled emotions to awe. "Yes," Artemis said. "Because you saved me."


	11. Chapter 11: Out of the Darkness

Out of the Darkness

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It's really a miracle he didn't have a breakdown before now, Artemis thought. He was thinking of Jarlaxle, who was still back in the inn room while Artemis wandering around Poln because the elven mercenary wanted to be alone.

He swung Shadir in another complicated set of spins and arcs. In larger cities, he wouldn't have been allowed free reign to walk around the town with his sword unsheathed. In fact, in most smaller towns it was considered bad manners anyway even if you meant no harm, and had a peace knot tied between your hilt and your sheath to keep it in there.

He considered this for a moment, setting his problem concerning Jarlaxle aside. It had been unusual. The circumstances they came to this village, the quietness of it, everything.

He looked around the street.

Practically deserted.

The backs of farmers bent over their fields were in the distance, but also, people standing on the edges of the fields, a solid stance with feet spread far apart. Watching the farmers? His mind raced. Defending them. They were worried about the circumstances of Artemis and Jarlaxle's arrival. The thing he'd said. Invisible ghosts? He tried to remember.

So much had happened between him and Jarlaxle that he found himself being distracted. The house of cards that had been his life had finally collapsed after he tried to build a working relationship on top of it. He'd razed it now in order to build a new life with sturdier foundations, one that might hold up the weight of the relationship he longed for with someone else.

Regretfully, he considered Dwahvel. He'd been careful not to topple his house of cards then, at Calimport, since he had already been in such life threatening danger. As far as he knew, the wily halfling wasn't married, and wasn't considering any offers. She took much power from being an independent woman; it kept people guessing. He'd inched out as far as he was able in order to reach her…

Artemis smiled wistfully, returning Shadir to its sheath and walking. Something about this town, with its dusty little storefronts, was soothing, and he let it soothe him.

He cared about Dwahvel. He cared about her with a tenderness that he'd been unable to bring himself to reveal. The only way he could hint it to her was to write a letter and run away, leave for good. If he came back after a letter like that –

He couldn't imagine, but the thought made him nervous. He'd never be able to face her. Besides, he reminded himself, I'll put her in danger. The plan was to never come back. She knew it; I knew it, we both agreed to it. He nodded. Yes. She'd be angry if he came back. He would be risking his life, and endangering hers, and they didn't really want to see each other again.

After all, he was dangerous and made her nervous, and she was nosy and made him angry. Not a good combination.

Oh? Really? He thought. There's another person I can name who has the same combination. That troubled him. Jarlaxle was the same. Artemis was dangerous, and that made Jarlaxle nervous. Jarlaxle was nosy, and that made Artemis angry. And yet, here he was, the day after declaring his love of Jarlaxle to Jarlaxle, and he was forgiving every offense Jarlaxle had ever done him. Why this sudden change?

Artemis sighed and rubbed a hand on his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. Because you _love_ him, he told himself. That's what the concept is. How it's supposed to work. If you didn't love him, you couldn't forgive some of those snide remarks of his. The assassin had been telling himself that ever since he decided to write the word in his letter.

Love. It seemed drastic, overpowering, a little dramatic, even, right from the start.

But you love him, the voice in his head reminded him. It shows.

It does not, Artemis coldly thought back.

The assassin's blood ran cold at the very thought that he was revealing some kind of private emotion. Ever since he'd been small, the idea of someone he didn't know, an adult, seeing something that was supposed to be private in Artemis' head sickened him. He physically had to resist retching.

He didn't want anyone to know what he valued, what made him smile, the things that made him happy, and why. Then it would cease of be magical to him. Not only that, but they would take whatever Artemis desired in the first place so that they could enjoy it instead of him.

That's why he worked so hard to project the image of a man who enjoyed nothing. People were taken aback by this, and that was where he wanted them. In confusion. Imbalanced. So he could easily take advantage of them and survive whatever it is they planned for him. Because it was never anything good. Not when his profession was an assassin. Not if the experiences of his early life had any bearing at all on his future.

They were, he reassured himself. They did. They do. It all had to have a meaning. It couldn't have just happened to him because of the swirling chaos that determined much of life. It lasted too long. It was too painful. It was too spirit-breaking. It had to have some point, some purpose. It had meaning. Perhaps Tyr will make sense in the end. He'll come down and speak to me – or he'll give me a vision. I'll see him. He'll explain what it was I went through and why, he'll tell me that I passed the test, and he'll smile kindly and finally give me his blessing, so this can all be over.

That flicker of hope was wrenched away from him by the shame of the realization that he did hope that was what was going to happen after all this time. His suffering, his journey, made into nothing but a test, the results of which gave him back what he started with.

Artemis clenched his jaw. No. He couldn't be satisfied with that. It was what happened after his father abused him that had meaning. It was what he did with himself. And he'd done exactly what Jarlaxle had said he'd done. He'd escaped. And he'd learned how to defend himself. And he'd make sure that no one could ever get close to him, to get power over him, to hurt him ever again. His father had been his adversary, and he had beaten that looming figure in the cleric's robes of Tyr. He'd risen above his father. Gotten stronger.

He gripped Shadir's hilt tightly. He'd come out of the other side of the long darkness and finally become better than his father. He'd had Jarlaxle to show him the way when he'd gotten lost. Now that he could see again, he knew that he'd almost gotten lost forever, tangled deeper, further, into the maze of being a Calimport assassin. Now that he could see, he knew what he had to do.

He had to stop being an assassin. He couldn't be an assassin anymore if he wanted to live up to the parts of him that were better than his father. If someone wanted to hire him to kill another person, he'd thrust Shadir through their guts and shear them in two. He'd make sure they were the first one to be slain by their desire to kill without blood on their hands. They could take responsibility for their decisions. He wouldn't let cowards hide behind him anymore while he went and murdered for the sake of staying alive in the sphere of those maggots' influence.

His anger cooled, and Artemis stared at the hard-packed ground desolately. And then I can stop killing innocent people just to be able to cover my tracks.

"Rathad doesn't kill people," he said aloud, his voice hard with determination, and when he heard it, he liked the sound of that. A smile twitched on his lips. "Indeed," he said, grinning wryly at himself. "Rathad may cut off a few limbs, or stab you in the stomach, but what you do afterwards in the way of medical care is your problem."

Well, it's a start, isn't it? a voice in his head chuckled.

He liked the way Rathad thought.


	12. Chapter 12: Jarlaxle's Charm

Jarlaxle's Charm

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"Being _alive _is wrong," Jarlaxle said. He was curled up in bed, still trying to make sense of what had happened to him this morning. "There is nothing I can do about it – everything I do when alive will be wrong."

He closed his eyes, clutching the pillow where Artemis' head had rested to his chest. His position was curled up tightly enough to make him look as though he were trying to be unborn. He didn't know if that was possible. To undo everything that happened. Time, elastic, would bounce back, he imagined, and all the things he'd done would never exist. He'd be neatly excised and the world wouldn't know. He'd be dead. He'd return to being the strange, enigmatic spirit that could see everything he could have been, all the lives he could have lived and the children he could have fathered.

He vaguely remembered being that spirit, that being that could see in every direction around him at once, having no body and no eyes. Sometimes, he thought he remembered it being like a green flame. But then, he'd wake up, and the images were so disjointed that he wondered if he had ever seen the flickering shape, the green light.

"Being the third child is like being a dog. Being male is like being a dog. Being a third child is like being… nothing. A box of candy, perhaps, or a song, or a stick of incense. Something to be offered for sacrifice at an altar in order to please the goddess. Nothing but a thing created by the goddess in an act of self-homage." Jarlaxle's lip curled in bitterness, disgust, scorn. "Vanity. I am alive because of vanity."

He spoke only to himself, and he didn't care. Wasn't he enough, after all? Shouldn't he speak to him, when others wouldn't, refused, denied social contact with him? Shouldn't he even deign to say hello? Or would he ignore himself? Would that be the final act of expulsion? His family wrapped him in a package and killed him, expelling him as if he were something sickening their stomachs. Lloth, the goddess he was supposed to be a follower of, even if she found him as worthless as paste jewelry, a gaudy little trinket, then with an idle hand released him back into the world from whence he came. Two out of three. Would he now, unable to stomach himself, purge the 'self' from his body until there was nothing left?

The drow mercenary was contemptuous. No, he said, his voice ringing through the confines of his mind. I am myself, and myself is worthy to stand against anyone and anything – even if it is a goddess who says she has the secret of right and wrong – claiming that there is no worth to the being 'Me'.

Jarlaxle uncurled, and straightened, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and standing up. His mouth was a grim line. He was a pillar of self-respect. He could take on anything.

His expression melted into foolish confusion. Why, then, can't I convince myself that I deserve Artemis? He cupped his chin in his hand.

Reaffirming himself hadn't helped. He still felt just as lost, just as pitiful as before. Why couldn't he convince himself that Artemis would value him just as much as he valued himself?

"If one man's trash is another man's treasure," Jarlaxle said aloud, "then why am I convinced that as far as I am concerned, I'm my own man's treasure, and everyone else's trash?" He frowned in thought. He uneasily began to pace the room. It didn't occur to him that he was still completely naked. "That is, why can't I see anyone else seeing anything good in me? Isn't that a lack of confidence?"

No. He denied it without hesitation. He felt fine. He was confident. He could do anything he wanted to. His judgement was razor sharp and discerning, he could make allies with anyone he pleased no matter how contrary or irrational the person might be, and he could escape danger with a paper clip and a strip of mint floss. He was competent all the way to the tips of his fingernails.

Why didn't he think anyone else would care? Be impressed? Actually want to be in his company if he turned his charm off for an instant? His heart plummeted in his chest, crestfallen. He didn't honestly think anyone would ever give him a second glance, no matter how obviously fabulous and indispensable he was. "But _why_?" He asked, staring at his own reflection in the mirror and gaping at the Jarlaxle there in protest. "Why doesn't anyone like me?"

He turned away from it, putting his hands behind him on the surface of the dresser, and paused there. He crossed his legs at the ankles and narrowed his eyes, furiously trying to think as if he could stab his way to insight.

A flash of cold from the inside, bone-deep, shook him. "Why do I _need_ people to like me?" His words hung in the air, thundering echoes that sounded much too loud all of a sudden. He flinched, and froze.

He always felt better when he thought someone liked him. Their enthralled response to a speech, or an observation, a greeting or a joke, made him pleased. Not the calculating excitement related to how he could use their talents for his gain now that they liked him.

An entirely gratuitous spurt of happiness, like the sensation he experienced when the sun warmed his skin, or when he bit into a sugared date for the first time. Like the pleasant scent of one of those flowers – roses. The feeling that rose up in him when he heard Rathad's voice change from cold to pleasantly purring when they were alone together.

No matter what else he had to do, he always felt like lingering longer than necessary in the company of the people that seemed so charmed by him. He had to tear himself away sometimes, when he didn't even realize that he wasn't being logical until ten minutes had lengthened into half an hour.

And then, their gazes changing later into looks of disappointment towards him when he came into the room, mingled with anger, and…disgust. He could read their faces as easily as a sign in front of an inn, and he didn't know why this transformation always happened.

Well, yes, he had put his best interests before their own, but it wasn't "betrayal". He never actually hurt any of them – they must surely have suspected in the very least – why, expected him to act as he saw fit! They would have done the same thing if they were in his position! Their hurt act was a humorous piece of manipulation, to get the upper hand, but still…

Why did they carry on so tiresomely long, time after time, even when he made it clear that their last bid for gaining more from him wouldn't work? Having that sort of disagreement between them could only stunt their relations – hold them back from having a good time the next time they met. Why did they persist with the game? Did they really enjoy losing that little?

Jarlaxle hesitated, his tongue poised for another question he longed to put to the empty room. He had to admit that he experienced a bruising ache. It hurt his feelings, though he'd been through the disappointment numerous times, over and over again, through his travels on the Surface. He had a nagging feeling that he didn't understand the Game here.

Surface-dwellers had their own variation on the Game, and to Jarlaxle it seemed an even more inscrutable one than that the Drow people of his own city engaged in. There were still rules and subtleties that he saw, but was unable to decipher. It was really his fault, he thought mournfully, looking at his hat on the floor where it had remained all night. I can't learn the Game well enough to play it to everyone's satisfaction. In the Underdark, I know all the rules so well that no matter what the twist necessary to arrange everyone's goals, I can make it with a simple flick of the wrist. He'd still suffer only half-victories until he could figure out how to twist the situation so that everyone walked away with what they really wanted in the first place.

He found himself becoming homesick for the wry smiles on the faces of dark-skinned elves as they silently admitted with their eyes he had been the better of them, but everything had worked out in the end. Coaxing smiles, genuinely harmless smiles, out of his resentfully distant people had been one of the things he enjoyed most about being the leader of Bregan D'aerthe, the lawless mastermind. Outwitting them for their own good, he'd like to think. Arranging deals and allies for everyone's mutual benefit.

It was a private emotion he kept very close to his heart where no one else would be likely to stumble upon it, but he hated seeing people lose. The academy where he and the other youths learned warriors' arts was the hardest place he'd ever been through in his entire life. People were wounded, defeated, and killed in training every day by fellow students. It sickened him.

With a lurch in his stomach, he remembered having a nervous breakdown in his fifth year and hiding in a closet in the dormitory until Zaknafein could coax him out with table scraps from dinner. Zaknafein's compassionate arms embracing him and his hastily spilled confession of horror at all the deaths surrounding him had led him to think of starting Bregan D'aerthe in the first place. "Maybe there's a way everyone can win after all," he'd said, and Zaknafein had looked as him as if he were crazy. He'd grinned ferociously and amended, "Well, the people that deserve to lose will still find their due."

Jarlaxle sighed. He found himself thinking of Rathad. Rathad. Now, here was a man that was confusing. Rathad was complicated, a new person evolved from a familiar one. Ever since Aberiss, Jarlaxle had for the first time noted a marked change in Artemis' behavior. Slow progress turned into stunning results. He'd noticed Artemis laughing easier and relaxing for longer periods of time. The assassin had been changing – growing, Jarlaxle thought – for months. But now all of a sudden his companion changed in leaps and bounds.

That was why he thought it was inevitable that Artemis would need to make the decision to make the change from Artemis Entreri into someone entirely different.

And now that Jarlaxle had helped Artemis choose a name for that new person, Jarlaxle could call it by name. Rathad.

He was quite attracted to Rathad. Some quality that Rathad had was not found in Artemis. Rathad demanded trust where Artemis did not. Rathad demanded trust simply by having a way of pulling at you, drawing you in, making you bask in one of those broad grins and long for his company because of his effortless energy in whatever task he was about. He made you feel more efficient just by being around him. Jarlaxle liked efficiency; and he liked Rathad.

He laughed to think that underneath all that scowling was some part of Artemis that had been blessed with inherent likeability. And worse – more humorous still – a part of Artemis that could be so pleasantly easygoing. It boggled the mind. It was no wonder that no one recognized Rathad as being the evolution of the man Artemis.

Jarlaxle could scarcely wait to see what else Artemis had buried under the demeanor of being an assassin.

But why did he care what happened to Artemis Entreri?

The part of him that did care was stung by this question. It defensively tried to escape analysis, but it didn't work. Under his prodding, it fell into several sections.

There was Curiosity – and that was okay. Curiosity about whether or not Artemis would be able to pull himself together, that was alright, a perfectly acceptable motivation for continuing to take interest in Rathad.

Partnership – he wasn't alone on the Surface when he had Artemis to back up any business venture he wanted to make, and having a reliable partner is an enormous asset. That's acceptable. He shifted uneasily.

There was the fact that he liked Artemis – he could have a sharp sense of humor and it made Jarlaxle feel special just because Artemis would make those comments around him. Artemis didn't speak to anyone; he only socialized with a select few. A feeling of Friendship. That was acceptable within certain boundaries.

He liked a challenge. Balancing his motivations with Artemis' and constantly needing to make adjustments in order to keep Artemis as a partner gave Jarlaxle plenty to do. Challenge is most approved of all. Nothing gets in the way of Challenge, not even personal feelings like Friendship.

But now, the one that Jarlaxle was avoiding all along. That tenuous connection he felt to people also motivated him to keep company with Artemis. He was drawn to people that liked him.

Just when he thought the guilty pleasure of staying longer than necessary with people who liked him might be normal, a hand slapped his face hard enough to leave a glowing imprint in heat vision for the next day.

He'd been talking to a group of soldiers in the common room of the barracks. The common room was a vast place where the soldiers of his House showed off their victories, lounged companionably with each other, ate, and played games. He'd always felt like an intruder, since he wasn't a soldier, he was the firstborn son of the House, but they were the only other men around besides the Weapon Master, and he was too young to be allowed to tag along after the reclusive man.

There was a pit of faerie fire recessed into one wall, lighting the common room up so all their trophies could be seen in normal light. There were heads and bodies of creatures killed on patrols, and various weapons decorated the walls like other races hung pictures and tapestries. One man had been given a badge of honor of sorts for being an exemplary soldier, and that was displayed here, too. It was a spider shaped medallion that did nothing, but was made of valuable metals and signified that he'd satisfactorily performed the will of Lloth, a rare admission for both the goddess and the House.

At first, Jarlaxle would sneak off to the barracks after he'd taken care of the Chapel, and when that was not discouraged, it became his routine. That was how the priestess knew to find him there the day everything fell apart.

She appeared in the doorway, startling everyone, and then strode furiously over to him. He turned, and accidentally made eye contact with her. Before he could look away, she slapped him, hard. His eyes stung with tears of pain, and as he stumbled, she grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room. He didn't even get to say goodbye. One moment he was shyly smiling and having a conversation with the soldiers, and the next he was being marched through hallways on a path that he recognized would lead to the Matron's chamber. He didn't know what he'd done.

The Matron always intimidated him. She was Amuira Bellni, one of the oldest Matrons in Jarlaxle's time. He'd met her when he was on the run from soldiers having a good time by slaughtering any beggar children they came across, and Bellni had apparently prayed to Lloth for a child. He'd been surrounded by strange light, and then found himself transported to her Chapel. Lloth apparently thought he was a perfect son for the barren Matron, and arranged things to fit. It wasn't often that a Matron adopted a son, so he was told to feel honored, but what he felt instead was revulsion.

She was a withered up figure on a throne. He was dragged into the room by his arm and tossed to the ground by the priestess. Matron Bellni gave him a long explanation of exactly what she expected of him. Her sentences were punctuated with a whip.

"I'm tired of people saying that I spoil you, boy," she said. She had a gruff, grainy voice full of splinters. She took a whip from her belt as she spoke and shifted, slowly getting to her feet and walking towards him. He took this in with a glance as he pretended to have his eyes fixed on the smooth tiles of the floor. "I never laid a hand on you until now, and I get the feeling," she said, looking meaningfully at the priestess who brought Jarlaxle in, "that everyone thinks old Bellni's gone soft." The priestess paled slightly, making a show of her guilty tongue where those rumors were concerned.

It wasn't time for Jarlaxle to say anything. He felt a little apprehensive. Being whipped didn't look fun, and the cuts he'd seen some soldiers receive bled. He was hoping that if he behaved, she might not hit him as hard as she could. Her frail arms were full of sinew.

Matron Bellni paused about ten paces in front of him. Not close enough to strike him right now. She cocked her head quizzically, waiting for an opening remark. She knew he was a flippant individual and usually had one.

"I don't think you've gone soft, Matron," Jarlaxle said, glancing at her weathered arm. Her whipping arm was corded with muscle.

She laughed wryly. "You'd be a fool if you did, boy." That was the closest she got to complimenting him, but he knew it was substantially closer than most female drow would ever come. All things considered, she was treating him nicely.

He tried to think of what he did. It was important to him because that would make a difference in how he was supposed to act. Did she know about his flirting with the youngest priestess of the House? Or did she think he'd stolen an extra weva fruit from the table last week? He had, but that was beside the point. It hadn't been for him, it had been for a riding lizard. Almost no one knew that they liked weva fruit. It couldn't be that he didn't do his laundry on time. Why would she care?

"You're growing old enough to understand the intricacies of what we call society," she said.

Yes. Why? Jarlaxle thought back at her. Whatever it was she was talking about, it sounded worse than anything he'd done.

"It's time to begin chastising you whenever your behavior becomes inappropriate," the Matron said, tightening her grip on the handle of her whip. "Your childish fantasies of how the world works aren't going to benefit your survival, so listen to me."

He carefully eyed her whip without looking at her. Its heads were relaxed, swinging limply, and their eyes were closed. That meant that Matron Bellni wasn't angry at him. "Yes?"

"What runs through your head whenever you visit the soldiers at the barracks?" she said. "You sneak off to them as if you need them." She cut off his protest. "You're setting yourself up for betrayal. If you ever have to lead them into combat, they'll know that they can manipulate you into doing whatever they want you to do. They don't have to do their duty around you because they know you're looking for their approval."

"That's not true," he said.

She allowed him this protest, and then nodded, continuing as if she hadn't heard him. Her mild expression didn't change. "You don't need them. Drow never need each other. We use each other, and we respect each other so far as we need to in order to use the people around us again. It's not a sentimental attachment. Those fall away with childhood. And your period of childishness is over."

She approached him, and he bit his lip, expecting the beginning of his punishment. "Take your lip out from between your teeth, boy," she said. "You don't want to bite it off, do you?"

He hastily did as he was told. If you care, why are you going to hit me with those things? He thought, staring at the strange snakes that made up her whip as they wiggled sleepily, waking up.

"You should have had the sense to figure this out for yourself, but instead I have to tell you."

He didn't see precisely what she did, but he saw the snakes on the whip lash out. He flinched, closing his eyes. Instead of biting him, the snakes only slashed against his back because she wasn't truly angry. He stifled a sudden intake of breath. It burned. He could feel the long scratches on his back. He didn't even have to look in a mirror to know precisely what they looked like.

"You should know better. Tell me boy," she said, walking in a circle around him appraisingly, her piercing gaze trying to read whether he understood the situation and felt properly punished, "what is an acceptable motivation for going to the barracks?"

"Because they _like_ me," Jarlaxle said, gritting his teeth against a surge of outrage and indignation helplessly coursing through him. He was afraid of it. He didn't know why he should feel so strongly when it would only get him into trouble. "What harm is there in it?"

She lashed out at him again, striking his back and scoring burning lines diagonally across the ones already there. It hurt more than he thought it would. He inadvertently yelped. Being made to cry out that way made him angry. It was humiliating. Until then, he'd never really been humiliated by anyone before.

"They matter nothing to you," she said, her voice growling in her throat. He thought with apprehension that he was making her angry where she wasn't before. "Do you understand me? Their feelings, their thoughts, their desires –they are iblith. They are disposable creatures who are there to be forced to defend us and carry out our orders. They are not playthings. They are tools."

He flinched as the snakes hissed. The sound sliced through his thoughts and startled him, frightening him. He felt tears sting his eyes as he realized that he was trembling, and wanted very badly to run away.

"Curiosity," she said, and struck him with the whip. With another hiss, the snake heads lashed at him. One of them bit him. "That is an acceptable motivation for going to the barracks. Curiosity keeps you alert, it builds intrigue, and it leads you to investigate any advantages the enemy has left you."

He abnormally hot. In spite of himself, his knees weakened. He put his hands on the floor to keep from collapsing. The muscles in his arms weakened and relaxed when he didn't want them to. He sank forward, now lying on the floor face down, and couldn't move.

"Competitiveness," she said, striking at him again. "You're eager to start your training and wanted the soldiers to give you a head start before being apprenticed to the Weapon Master. You want to be the best, and that is the only way."

Jarlaxle shivered. The floor felt like ice against his skin, beginning to burn that it was so cold. He was having a hard time trying to understand her words, and they wouldn't stop. They invaded his head whether he wanted to hear them or not. She was beginning to sound like Lloth. The faint memory of hearing her voice was melding with Matron Bellni's. His back and the pain there seemed very far away.

"You want to gain their trust. You are eager to have such powerful tools in your command," she said, and a thrust of pain against his back cut into him again. "You have a natural talent for manipulation." She smiled viciously down at him, but he couldn't see it. He only heard it in her voice when she said, "Yes. You are charming."

He whimpered. It was still in his chest, the warm feeling when he thought about the soldiers. It was a comfort to him to cling to it, for him it meant that he could block out what she was saying to him. He could hear the soldiers' banter and their talks with him instead. How could she suggest that he use that to control them? Cannag and his friends were too valuable to him to trade them for something he was supposed to do just because he was in a position of power over them, or would be eventually. Jarlaxle hadn't talked to them because be wanted to control them. Doing that now would hurt what he had with them. "Matron…"

She whipped him in response, six snake heads ripping into him. The pain was suddenly intense. He felt his body twitch. "You like them," Matron Bellni said. "They draw you to them as easily as drawing a goblin with a few gold coins; they laugh at you, how easily you are won over. Know that when they decide to use you, they will not let you live as I have."

He heard her walking away.

The world started gently spinning and tilting, even though Jarlaxle knew that he was lying in place, and it couldn't be an earthquake.

It isn't natural, Jarlaxle thought, folding his arms across his chest and looking at the four poster bed longingly, wanting to get back in. It isn't natural to want to like people and be liked in return. Why do I do it, then? How can I be so much of an aberration in the Drow people? I've been left out my entire life. Needing to be liked has held me back in so many ways. The urge cropping up in so many places that it gets so that I can't stand it.

That's when I always turned to Zaknafein. He liked me. For a while, he'd make me feel as though there were nothing wrong with needing somebody. He'd help me pretend that I didn't need anybody. Help me feel normal. Rational. I could always act the right way when he was there to bolster me.

If I'd been a better person, I wouldn't have needed him to be able to function as a normal Drow being. If I weren't defective.

But if I weren't defective, I'd still be down there, no doubt happily making a living off of other people's misfortune. Menzoberranzan will collapse eventually when everyone cuts the supports out from under establishments that need to stay in place – the rothe herders, the patrol around the city, the common shopkeepers. They can't keep going that way. Even if they don't need to be liked by other people, society is built on necessities that have to be fulfilled. That is, after all, how I made a place for myself. I made reliable mercenaries a necessity.

But why can't I eliminate the urge to make people like me? Why do I care?

Why do I care?

Jarlaxle put a hand to his temples. He didn't know why he cared, and he was cold and was developing a headache. He admitted defeat and slipped back into the bed, nestling under the covers.


	13. Chapter 13: I'll Start Tomorrow

I'll Start Tomorrow

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That was a sight: A man with long, ragged black hair creeping along the hallway towards the door at the corner of the washing room, wearing a brown cloak. His tall, large-heeled books clumped softly against the russet colored carpet underneath his feet. He wore a smile that was small and gentle, like that of a person secretly trying to please someone they loved. A sheathed broadsword hung at his side. He opened the door with a gloved hand and looked inside. He saw a dark skinned figure under the covers in the four poster bed. His smile turned to a grin.

"Jarlaxle." The drow mercenary heard his name softly called. "Jarlaxle," the voice came again. It sounded far away, as if it were across the room. He stirred, his uneasy ruminations falling away from him and leaving him in a state of painful desolation that irritated him.

"I want to be alone," Jarlaxle said, lifting his burning red eyes to the figure half hidden by the door. He met the anxious eyes of Rathad, and couldn't think of anything else to say. What more to say was there, really? He'd cut himself off from other people so completely that there was no way to be able to tolerate his constant existence in other peoples' company. It was too late.

It hadn't been his choice to be this way, but it had happened anyway, and he'd carried out his own death sentence. Hadn't he taken the Matron's advice to heart? Hadn't he been the one to break up and destroy any connection he felt to anyone on purpose in order to isolate himself and make anyone who got close to him feel as though he didn't really need them? Didn't he, then, in the purest sense of the outcome, _want_ to be alone?

_Didn't_ he want to be standing all by himself when the time came to stare his death in the face? He'd always imagined it that way, and it was his imagination that often brought about his greatest victories. His imagination was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He'd let Artemis in to much of his thinking, compared to his other companions, but for what purpose? He was just going to die anyway; and Artemis would die long before him, if things turned out the way he imagined.

Rathad stepped into the room, and shut the door gently behind him. "I'm _not_ going to leave you alone," he said. "Now look at you; you're in a bad mood. You look as though you've been looking at corpses this whole time."

"What difference is there between corpses and memories?" Jarlaxle said. "They're both just as dead."

Rathad went over and sat on the edge of the bed. "But they don't have the same death," he said, attacking the problem logically. "The corpse of the dead man lies there, finished, I suppose it's been spent in a way, but the image of the corpse of the dead man can become the memory of someone else. Therefore he hasn't rotted away, even though his body has been left behind on the side of the road, because he exists as fresh as if he had just died in someone's mind. A thing caught in someone's mind is like a scarab beetle caught in amber. It's indefinite."

"I mean you no offense, Artemis," said Jarlaxle. "I do not wish to discuss philosophy."

"Rathad," Artemis said.

Jarlaxle stared at him. "What?"

"It's Rathad now," the Calishite said. "I've made up my mind. I'm going to start over as a man. Not a killing machine with a human body."

"Congratulations," Jarlaxle said. He was resigned. Artemis had made the transformation. It was a source of hollowness for him. He knew that if he were really Rathad's friend, he'd feel happy for the man, but he couldn't feel anything. It only proved his realization that he was really nothing better than a sociopath who smiled a lot. He must seem a monster to everyone here, not able to connect to anyone, always being the source of turmoil and strife wherever he went, stirring the waters.

He'd thought about his actions much since he'd realized that he'd given up his ability to trust in response to the old Matron's request. He'd meekly handed over what had been his only saving grace as a dark elf. His people were evil, weren't they? He only perpetuated that myth by being the way he was. He'd willingly played into his social stereotypes by buckling under pressure and allowing himself to be used that way. He'd irresponsibly given up his future without a second thought; shed a perceived imperfection that he since realized had been the only thing that allowed him to relate to other people. He tried to assert what he'd been left with after that sacrifice to House Bellni, but he couldn't hold against his shame. He'd willingly given up what he'd been made to feel made him defective, and now he was defective because he'd given it up. The realization, coming so long, finally tore its way out of him.

Jarlaxle felt himself shaking like an unstable cart missing a pin. He was about to go to pieces. It wouldn't be long. He could already see the affects of his eyes losing focus, and it was exactly the same flying-apart feeling he'd had before he'd decided that if he hid in a closet, he wouldn't have to see students slaughtering each other throughout the school anymore. A great sensation of guilt settled down on him.

The other man saw a change come over Jarlaxle's features with a dawning sense of alarm. "Jarlaxle," Rathad said, slipping his arms around the thin mercenary and embracing the dark elf. The only time Rathad had seen something similar was when Jarlaxle had been recounting the tale of Mistress Yanari imprisoning him for twelve years before he escaped. Rathad could see that he was overwrought. Instead of pulling himself together, he'd fallen apart. Jarlaxle's body felt slightly cold.

Jarlaxle leaned forward into Rathad, arms pinned between himself and his companion's chest. He put his mouth tremblingly to Rathad's shoulder and spoke, staring ahead unseeingly. Instead of anything in the room, he saw a dreamlike image of a dark cave. "I have been undone. Arrogance led me to believe that I knew the answers."

Rathad looked into Jarlaxle's eyes and determinedly wrested the drow mercenary's attention away from the image. He realized that he was looking into Rathad's gray eyes. "Now you know," Jarlaxle said.

The former assassin kissed Jarlaxle on the lips gently. Rathad ran a hand over Jarlaxle's bald scalp. "You don't have to be alone," he said. "You just want to be because you are too ashamed to want anyone to see your face." He paused, and then said, "Because you're foolish."

"Oh. Is that why," Jarlaxle murmured. "That isn't so bad compared to what other people have called me." A tear welled up and slipped down his cheek; more soon followed. The worst part, he thought as he cradled his head against Rathad's chest, was that he didn't even know what he was crying. He felt the top of his head bump into Artemis' chin, and the man's strong arms holding him protectively to Artemis' chest. He had to take a moment to remind himself that it wasn't Artemis anymore, it was Rathad. There was no Artemis anymore. Surprising himself, he let out an audible sound and began crying all the harder. "I never thought you'd change so much."

"I'm not going anywhere," Rathad said, looking slightly alarmed. "I'm just changing my name. It was your idea, remember?" He tried to get back eye contact. He tried rubbing Jarlaxle's upper arms to be comforting. "I'm me. It's not really a change. I'm just giving up being an assassin. I thought that was something you _wanted_ me to do. You said it was a lie anyway."

Jarlaxle said, feeling bad about it and clinging to Artemis, trying to inject a tone of banter into it, "Ah, my friend, now you don't need me anymore. No more Jarlaxle nagging you to always sit up straighter, smile, be yourself. It's past the point where you need my coaching. I can leave you alone for a few minutes without worrying about whether or not you'll beat some poor barmaid senseless." He pressed himself against Rathad completely and savored the warmth of his friend's body. His eyes stung, and he closed them against another wave of loss.

"You're wrong," Rathad said. "I need _you_. Not your admonitions." He saw that his words were beginning to have an affect on Jarlaxle. At least he was getting to the drow partially. He rubbed his hands up and down Jarlaxle's bare back as he spoke. "You're the only reason I didn't try to commit suicide sooner. _You're _the reason I stood up against my father. If you hadn't been there, I would never have considered that the opponent overshadowing me all along was a dead man I'd never seen for forty years."

Jarlaxle wanted to believe him. I am valuable. That was what Artemis was trying to convince Jarlaxle of. The drow mercenary was valuable to him. But Jarlaxle couldn't believe that Rathad wouldn't leave him. The realization that he needed Rathad more than Rathad needed him startled, humbled, and distressed him. He tried to temper his sense of loss. He worked his fingers under the collar of Artemis' shirt, feeling the knot where the back of Artemis' neck met his shoulders. The drow mercenary kissed the exposed skin of Artemis' chest above the v-shaped neckline of Artemis' shirt and tried to close his arms around Artemis so tightly that he would never forget what the assassin's body felt like to embrace. He shut his eyes, trying desperately to take some part of this with him so that his loneliness wouldn't tear him apart as it had when Zaknafein died.

People come and go directed by their own needs and desires. If he couldn't find a way that Artemis needed him, he couldn't fight against the inexorable current that would eventually cause Artemis to drift, moving on to someone new that Artemis did need. It was inevitable – it was a _fact_. He needed Artemis more than Artemis needed him. Artemis wouldn't stay. He was readying Jarlaxle for his departure. He'd seen humans do it before. They said thank you. Then they left.

Then something didn't make sense to Jarlaxle anymore. He'd admitted that he needed Artemis. Why couldn't that mean that he followed Artemis? After all, people who needed the person they wanted more than the person needed them became followers. The drow mercenary had seen this form of inter personal relationship before. Wherever he went, he'd always had a line of people trailing after him in a chain, like a string of toys a child brought everywhere they went. He'd always looked back at them with amusement.

Jarlaxle's heart skipped a beat. He'd always wanted to be the one in control of the strings, making sure that he was never trapped in such a simple manner. Now, for once, he was not the leader in the Game. He opened his eyes and looked at Artemis with a strange expression on his face. He'd never had to follow anyone before. Now he had Artemis. Rathad was in charge of minding the strings.

He held himself to Rathad's chest and rested his head on Rathad speculatively. The drow mercenary stared off into space, letting the wooden frame of the headboard blur deconstruct into a meaningless shape. Rathad let him, though he knew that Rathad was looking at him curiously.

He would go wherever Rathad would go. Whatever Rathad wanted to do, he would do. He was no longer the one with the control of the string. He'd thought himself so clever, always one step ahead of everyone else, and a good fifteen paces in front of the average person. Being in charge so long had made him feel as though he knew what was best for everyone else around him. After all, he knew they needed him more than he needed them. Didn't that make him an overseer of all their goals and interests? No one had ever overthrown his position of power. No one ever would, he'd thought. No one ever _could_.

In trying to help Artemis, he'd probably blindly led his friend astray and gotten him lost. He'd no right to meddle with Artemis' life that way. And now he'd made a major decision based on Jarlaxle's advice. "I'm sorry," Jarlaxle said. He looked down at the pillows numbly. "I've failed. I was presumptuous. I didn't know what I was doing." Then he looked at Rathad's attentive face. "I hurt you." He knew for a fact that he'd often done that, trying to bend Artemis towards a different goal, or changing him 'for the better'. He hadn't stopped, believing there was no other way. Now he knew he did. "I tried to get you to be something you weren't." The drow paused hesitantly. He didn't know if he ought to say this. He wanted to show that he understood what he'd put Artemis through. His perceptions of what he'd done were clear. "It must have been painful."

To his surprise, his companion grinned. "I didn't know quite what to do," Rathad said, looking as though he were going to start laughing about it. "Snap you in two, or stab myself through the eye. It was a tough choice."

The drow mercenary opened his mouth, and then frowned. "But you didn't do either one."

"I'm still working on it," Rathad said, eyes twinkling. "Would you rather be snapped in half quickly, or slowly? I wouldn't want to put you through more inconvenience than you deserve." He stroked his chin as if thinking and put on a serious look. "And which do you think is my better side? In the event that I choose to shove my dagger through an eye instead, I don't want to damage my good side. People want to look at that at the funeral."

Normally, Jarlaxle would try to partake of the joke, but Rathad's timing seemed a little bit crass. He knitted his eyebrows together and said, "Rathad, I think you're insane."

Rathad took this in stride, with no more than a casual shrug and a tilt of his head, looking Jarlaxle in the eyes. Though he was smiling, his gray eyes were serious. "Then we're a pair," he said. He kicked his boots off and reclined on the bed casually, closing his eyes as if he planned to remain there for the rest of the day just because he could. "Let's celebrate by taking a nap."

"What about your code of discipline?" Jarlaxle asked.

"What code of discipline?" Rathad asked, opening one eye. The smug hint in his smile revealed that he was deliberately poking fun at Jarlaxle. "I'm a hired sword. When I can afford to be, I'm lazy." He was lying across Jarlaxle's lap, and made no move to change his position.

"I've just been through the worst day of my life," Jarlaxle said, looking down at Rathad. His expression was grim. Anger and resentment directed at the former assassin coursed through him. Artemis hadn't been there. He was too busy being a good friend. Being an obedient friend. Becoming Rathad so he could move on, while Jarlaxle was stuck in the past, trying to make sense of the mess his life had become. He instantly took it back and thought instead, The mess myself always has been. "I had to relive everything that's ever happened to me in order to make sure that I could make the right choice."

Rathad had been expecting this. He knew that Jarlaxle was making a decision about their future. That's why he left Jarlaxle alone. "What did you choose?" Rathad asked, and for a moment, he was Artemis again. He felt a tightness in his chest.

"I chose to give you a chance," Jarlaxle said. "I chose to trust people. I chose to ignore the words spoken to me by my Matron, my first caregiver since my mother sacrificed me. I chose to live by my better impulses and risk death for the sake of them. I don't expect anyone to do anything any differently in the wake of this decision, I expect to act differently on what actions they _do_ make." A feeling of resolve made his muscles tense. He was going in the face of so much resistance that he didn't know whether he was going to get through it. He was going to put down his tricks and try to confront this world of people directly. The drow mercenary's heart started beating faster at the thought of it.

If he could. If he didn't risk his life by doing so, Jarlaxle tried to reassure himself. He wasn't going to give up his magical items and his contingency plans for the sake of the Good Deed and the Honest Heart and the Trustworthy Reputation. He wasn't suicidal. Good gods. He couldn't imagine how people like Zaknafein's son lived. They must wake up at night in cold sweats, living in a world of perpetual horror.

"I'm going to live up to the better part of me," Jarlaxle said.

Artemis froze. "How can you read my thoughts?" he said. His voice came out harshly.

The drow shrugged, his eyes dancing merrily. "I don't believe I'll answer that," he said, leaning back.

"Then what about your vow to live up to the better part of yourself?" Rathad demanded.

Jarlaxle crossed his arms behind his head. "I'll start tomorrow."


End file.
